It’s a God thing….

2-17-2012

As noted above, I am supposed to be home in a few hours your time.  Add 24. 

Yes, a BROWN elephant!

Currently, I am sitting in one of the swanky Dar hotels, the New Africa Hotel.  I just had lunch at another swanky hotel, the Serena.  But that isn’t the half of it!

Last night, while I sadly left Jake and Meg standing in the Dar airport, with no control over the situation at all, I was ushered to a cab to take us to the NAH, sharing with an executive-type in a sport coat and tie.  In the Dar airport.  Our conversation quickly turned to our activities.

Pumba.  Hakuna metata!

His name is James Dobbin and he does consulting work for big companies in Africa.  His team studies sites in a comprehensive, multidisciplinary way, precisely to avoid the silo effect that so many companies can fall into accidentally, limiting their own profits and not maximizing communities where they are investing time and energy.

Elephant's cousin, the Rock Hyrax.

He was enormously interested in the Ilula Nutrition Project, although it needs a different, more inclusive name.  He liked the multi-layer approach with Ilula, Amani Orphanage and Ag Institute.  He offered me many insights and has offered an introduction to someone he knows at USAID.  Then we would have two contacts there.  Jim also said, paraphrasing, to ask for a lot of money, because USAID isn’t  likely to have much interest in small projects.   One beauty of ours is the potential scalability to a broader area.  Wow!  Serendipity, perhaps.  Or it's a God thing.

Golden-Breasted Weaver 

One thing he did not offer was money (no, I didn’t ask).  Does anyone know where we could find $500,000?  How about $50,000?  Does anyone know of benefactors who might be interested?  Does anyone know Mary Lee Dayton?  I think this would be right up her alley.  Think about it.  Please!

Here are a few fun photos.  I know you skipped to them first, but I hope you read this installment, perhaps even thinking I was going to describe the photos.  Nope.  Just captions.  I hope you enjoy them.  Come on over to watch the other one thousand I took!

Bubba Baboon

 Hopefully, I will get out on tonight's plane.  I have a boarding pass, a good sign, I believe.  Jim and I are confirmed for our flight.  Another good sign, I believe.