Travelling Shoes

December 12, 2008 by Stephen Day.

I am now in Dar es Salaam staying at the wonderful Passionist Fathers and preparing for my journey to Europe and America. I leave Tanzania in about 28 hours - my flight leaves around 11 pm on December 12 (East Africa Time, which is eight hours ahead of Washington and New York (this time of year). I came a day early because travelling in Tanzania does not always go as planned - busses break down, especially when they have 373,000 km (or 231,000 miles) on their odometer. That was the mileage on the bus I was on today (it didn’t break down).

So I am excited to see Europe and get home. I am spending a week in Europe with my mother who is flying to meet me. I have been many places on this amazing planet, but never to Europe. I will spend four days in London, two or three in Paris and one night in Amsterdam. I will arrive back in West Virginia on December 22. I am quite excited.

I have tentatively scheduled visits to parishes on the first and last Sundays in January, which only leaves two Sundays available. I am eager to share my amazing experiences with others.

When I got into Dar I went to a supermarket so that I could get some bottled water (Dar is hot and humid right now) and some snacks and was quite surprised by a few things. This is a supermarket much like those back in America, but still the similarities I saw today were quite eerie. The sound system was playing traditional American-style Christmas carols, their was a special aisle in the store dedicated to Christmas decorations, and all of the employees were wearing Santa hats. Most of the customers and all of the employees here were Tanzanians . It was amazing to see a scene so familiar so far from home.

Well, have a wonderful rest of advent. I will post more once I get home.

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