En route to Stone Town, Zanzibar

Some thoughts on Tanzania:

- As you drive through the villages, there is a very distinct scent of burning brush. I have only smelled fires like this in Tanzania. It's one of those odors that is so unique that I know it will be a powerful trigger of memory.

- I am struck by the contrasting images I have seen here. We left a walled-in beach resort paradise and just outside the gate is a village like any other in Tanzania - half-finished brick dwellings, crude shacks for homes, clothes hanging to dry outside in the sun, while a cooking fire burns with an African woman standing over it. Then there are the hospitals - private clinics, well-stocked with staff and supplies, but empty of patients in stark contrast to public hospitals with no doctor to be found, but crowds of people scattered about the medical compound. I noticed a contrast again between the CDC-run HIV care clinic with their organized files, and the rest of the public hospital campus on which it is located - its file room a pile of boxes with files that are falling apart and its wards that are dilapitated and dingy.

- The locals shout "Jambo! Jambo!" and "Karibu!" to us, but I wonder what they are saying to each other when my limited Swahili prevents me from keeping up with their conversation. I wonder how they really feel about American tourists.

- It seems like Obama is everywhere here. Our new president is on kangas, on posters, and in conversation all of the time. When we say we are from America, the locals say "Obama country!" The world is full of such hope right now, and so supportive of our new leader. I really hope that we don't disappoint our brothers and sisters around the globe. It would be nice if the United States could serve as a beacon of hope, because it seems like the world is falling apart at the seams and we need a light to guide us out of the wreckage.