We are still having difficulty adjusting to the time zone differences.  It was a slightly better night’s sleep but we are awakened again by the loud 5:00 a.m. call to prayer that starts the day throughout the Muslim world.  This time it went on for 40 minutes and was followed 15 minutes later by some sort of even louder competing loudspeaker music from the Christian church next door.  Taken together they ruled out any further sleep.  We gathered with the rest of our group at 8 a.m. for breakfast and our first daily briefing from Ronald.

Thoroughly briefed, we took a walk through the local neighborhood, a busy dirt-poor “commercial” area, and then boarded a bus to Shanga River House, a local facility that trains and employs the disabled to produce various handicrafts for sale.  Apparently the Tanzanian government does little or nothing to help the disabled and they are generally shunned by people in the villages where they live.  However, there are a few establishments of this nature in the country that have been opened by compassionate and concerned citizens.  (One thing that has impressed us so far about our trip leader is that while he is very proud of his country he has no hesitation in pointing out its warts.)  We observed the disabled blowing glass, weaving, sewing and making other crafts, had a fine lunch of Tanzanian specialties, and also toured an adjacent coffee farm.  It is a light day, to accommodate everyone’s jet lag (especially for the other half of our group who arrived at 11 p.m. last night), and tomorrow the real trip begins!