In Tanzania you are never alone, because everyone is your friend. I've fallen into it as well, actually really like the habit.

So, this morning, getting on the plane to Mwanza from Dar es Salaam the Air Tanzania folks printed my name on the ticket as Olfante Mitake, pretty close. No one, including myself, notices until the last minute at the gate. At which point, all hell breaks loose. Ah, my friend, you are not Ofante. True, but you gave me the damn ticket. Ah, i talk to the boss. So, they talk to something like 4 supervisors. The last of which, comes running over, looks at me, looks at the tickets and crosses out Olfante and writes Daniel on my ticket. Problem solved.

It's really wonderful being back in Africa, I know that comes off wrong on multiple levels, like he used to live in Nigeria, over a decade ago, and Africa is not one country, like something fox news might posit. But, regardless, its how i felt yesterday driving around Dar and today travelling to Mwanza.

The people, the colors, the near equatorial light, and the odors, it brings back a rush of memories from tooling around Jos in my dad's peugoet on the endless multi-part errands we would run for decent booze or air-conditioning freon.

Met a man named Augustine on the plane this morning, really a wonderful guy, is an auditor for the largest bank in tanzania, the national bank, half goverment owned, and 20% now bought by a dutch multinational bank, the Danz Bank i think. Anyway, we got heavy into microfinance and the state of the tanzanian economy (rich and poor division getting worse, the metoric rise of cellphones and the way it is changing local buisness) and the upcoming senegal vs. tanzania national soccer game in Mwanza, which most of the plane was bound for, and I will be heading to tomoorow myself.

I took a cab from the airport to Bugando hospital and met a number of the most amazing and friendly people. There is Prof Mutaba, a cardiothoracic surgeon and head of surgery who showed me around, then i found Dr. Ntabji, a good friend of Muhammed Jidawai (who will appear prominently as our story progresses to Zanzibar), and a great orthopedic surgeon and his partner Dr. Dal (who trained in Britain, and is recently back from Houston where he took step 1 and 2 of the USMLE, he's on the long road to working in the US) and the best of the bunch, the star of the day Mr. Nzuki Watabi.

Nzuki is the best because without him I would not be writing this blog from the mckinsey consulting firms Mwanza guesthouse, which is brand new, has a jcuzzi shower and AC, has the most awesome view overlooking lake victoria and has HBO, and the complete DVD collection of Curb your Enthusiasm and Entourage.

How did this happen? I thought you didn't even have housing figured out? I didnt'. I showed up this morning practically unanounced with no place to stay, dropped my bags in the orthopods office and hit the OR, a disarticulation and external fixation later and i went in search of housing. The first option was the Bugando student dcrms (they don't have running water and are close enough to hospital to smell like hosptial). The second option was Elizabeth Mark's guesthouse, highly recommended by the stringer corp, but booked solid.

The, randomly i meet a kid from californina in the hall and she's like, oh, we have room. So here i am. Fucking took one from the E.Rapp play book.

Anyway, we're off to dinner at the Tilapia with the Dutch contingency of this UN adventure. More later...