Friday Video Adventures

Along the 90-mile dirt "road" to the Masai village near Kwedigole, Vernon and I passed through a small village that had a connection (I forget exactly what) to David Livingstone, the guy of "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" fame.

Although his body was returned to Westminster Abbey in London, Livingstone's heart was buried in Africa.


Here's a short clip of Daniel's congregation singing in Masai during an open-air service. More about Daniel in the next few days.

I always thought David Livingstone was a fascinating guy, and not just because we share the same birthday.


One afternoon Vernon, Mary, Tom and Joanne's son Jonathan and I took their dirt bikes (import taxes make cars staggeringly expensive in TZ) over to Kwa Kuahinia, a dustbowl of arid land bissecting the Tarangire National Park, not far from the Serengetti plain.

That meant during the dry season, game living within the Park migrates through the areas where we'd be riding. Sounded like a great opportunity to see wild animals up close.

As the bikes were being unloaded Vernon and Mary told me that two weeks before, a tourist riding his bike through the same area had been snagged by a lion, and warned me to not to get "in the bushes" ... because lions knew what trails game animals used during migration, and sometimes waited beside them for lunch to be delivered.

"Bushes" means any growth more than knee high: a full-grown lion or lioness can hide behind a dried stick of brush that couldn't conceal a bowling ball.

I grinned and thought to myself, "Do they think I fell off a coconut truck?" (It helps if you understand the Missionary sense of humor).

Then about about two hours later, in the middle of absolutely nowhere, Vernon abruptly stopped and announced the time had come for my "Initiation."

He asked if I thought I could find my way back to the truck: the Initiation Ritual involved me navigating my way without their assistance. By myself. I thought we'd parked about 7 miles away and confidently announced, "Sure."

Vernon said, "Good," snapped his visor shut and thundered off with Mary and Jonathan, leaving me with my engine idling ... and my mouth stuck wide open.

I got lost in about 10 minutes, and ended up having to ride through a Masai village before finally finding the highway, after spending more than an hour of picking and re-tracing my way through boulders, thornbush and lots of deadends.

But I made it, and passed the Initiation.

Back at the truck I told Vernon they shouldn't have teased me with stories about lions eating tourists on motorcycles.

Vernon's and Mary's faces grew suddenly grave. "Oh no. We were serious. We'd never joke about anything like that."

The unhappy, stomach-turning truth is that I'd spent the past hour lost in the bushes, thinking about lions ... and how big their tracks look without bars around them.