Okay, so I meant the day after the day after tomorrow in my last post. Let’s continue…

There were two guys, one younger one older, in the cargo ‘office’ when I appeared in the doorway. Time to kick in the Swahili memory because Theo and Teddy’s existence may very well depend on it! I went through the normal greetings, about four exchanges in all, before I began explaining my situation… or actually the dog’s situation. The younger fella spoke up the most and spoke with authority as if it were his cargo car. In a short while, I ended up discovering his name to be Amir. But before that, he began asking me questions about my destination, why was I bringing dogs and how often I hoped to repeat bringing them water. Situation was looking kinda bleak for the dogs as my first visit could be my last before we get all the way up to Mbeya.

The doorway into the front section of the cargo car was… yep, blocked with stacks of foam mattresses from floor to ceiling. What did Amir tell me I had to do? Wait, of course, until the next long stop when one of them would be able to take me outside the train and into the side door of the compartment. Time to converse. I tried extremely hard to talk a lot in Swahili even though Amir made it clear he knew English well. The more I talked the more he warmed up to this lanky mzungu wanting to go out of his way for two animals Amir was hauling in his load. After a number of jokes, tales of families and Amir offering his seat to me, I was happy there was a friendship started.

11ish am: By the time the long stop was reached, the cargo office had an audience of five Tanzanians standing around to see what this mzungu would say, or try to say, next. The guard from the first blocked door was one of them and he was the one again who went outside, with me tagging along this time, to get into the forward compartment. I drank half of the bottle of water I brought for the dogs because I was in the hot office for so long, but it was 1/2 liter bottle so they still had plenty. I remembered Teddy’s kennel was the only one with a food/water dish so I borrowed Amir’s scissors (he had some kind of sewing hobby going on) to cut the bottle in half. Theo ended up with the makeshift cup. He didn’t want to drink (dumb dog) so I had to wedge his cup inside his kennel before I closed them back up and hopped out of the compartment to return to the office.

I spoke with Amir for a few more minutes before asking him about my possible return. “Karibu muda wowote,” he said… (welcome/come anytime). The visit began with me wondering if I’d get more than one visit with the dogs and ended with a handful of new friends and an open invitation to call on them anytime and tend to the pooches. I told him I’d probably return that evening to feed them. This is getting good. I like the train. What happened to all those horror stories from wazungu taking the train? I guess being able to return to a first class cabin and stretch out was a bonus instead of having to wedge myself in between people on bench seating in second or third class. We are blessed to be able to pay <$100 for our cabin. Way out of range for the common Tanzanian.

11:30 am - I make it back to a cold plate of breakfast awaiting me in our cabin. Didn’t matter cause I was way too hungry to care. It went down quick and easy as we sat next to the window watching the beautiful Tanzanian countryside slide by. Time to relax a little.

2:30 pm - We awoke after a short nap to some blazing heat. Even with the window and door wide open and wind flowing, the temp inside the cabin almost reached 90-degrees F. The DOGS!!! They for sure need water so time to exercise my open invitation. With a much bigger bottle this time, I headed for the cargo office. It only took me about 10 minutes to reach Amir this go round. Instead of making me wait, he had his assistant, a young fella I had yet to meet named Sayee, burrow a crawl path up through the foam mattresses. With a smile, he asked me if I thought I could handle the climb. I told him it reminded me of when I was a kid, trying to climb through things I shouldn’t be able to.

Sayee really took to the dogs which was a little shocking considering how scared most Tanzanians are of animals in general, especially unfamiliar ones. After I introduced him to Theo and Teddy, he really liked them and had tons of questions. Not a single Tanzanian has been able to guess the ages of the dogs due to their sizes. They think both are still just puppies. Big eyes and dropped jaws when they find out Teddy is almost 12 and Theo almost 7.

Both dogs looked great. The car actually got better air flow than our cabin because it had air coming in through the very front of the car where in the cabin, it could only slice in from the sides. Happy doggies.

After we took our time and allowed the mutts to roam around on the cargo, we made our way back through the mattress tunnel. I thanked them again and headed back to the cabin. Seeing the dogs in their great condition was encouraging to me but since Dana wasn’t able to see them, she was still worried a bit.

All this zig-zagging on a moving train was taking a toll on me. Time for another nap.

5:30 pm - Oh crap, the sun goes down at 6pm and it would be unwise for me to be anywhere outside this cabin after that. Gotta go feed the dogs, Oney. I’ll get back as soon as I can.

I loaded up a cup and a half of dog food in one cargo pocket of my shorts, dropped another water bottle in the other and made sure I had my cell phone strapped to my waist. Off we go. Zip through another first class car, through the lounge car, through a full dining and bar car until I hit the wall. Since my last visit up front, the amount of people in second and third class had to have at least doubled. People standing everywhere, even the walkway was hard to make out and there were how many cars between me and the dogs?!  Ruh-roh.

Part III will come later… maybe tomorrow… maybe not… hehehe…