Sylvia's Journal

I arrived in Arusha with a plane load of safari goers and mountain climbers – sturdy folks with good shoes and gear for a climb up Africa’s highest mountain (nearly 6000m), and, as I learned, the highest stand alone mountain in the world. I asked the driver who took me for the hour drive to Arusha what the name meant. He said it was Swahili for ‘never ending journey.’ I think that was his private, rather than the official, version. He told me he had gone up there once and, clearly, it felt like that to him. I have only once in my life climbed a mountain over 4000 meters, some forty years ago when I was still considering a career in mountain climbing. It was a memorable climb. The idea that you’d have to do another 2000 meters after that is hard to imagine, especially now with the knees and stamina no longer what they used to be in my teens.

I met Jet’s brother Karel as we boarded the plane in Amsterdam. He was on his way to the top of Kilimanjaro, doing the first few thousand miles by air. I think we had not seen each other since Willem and Jet got married in 1975 – he recognized me; I am not sure I would have recognized him; people change in 33 years. We are all grey-haired old folks now.

I rode shotgun in the taxi to Arusha because the back seat was not available. I am glad we arrived on a Sunday night as there was hardly any traffic on this road which is the main thoroughfare from Nairobi to Dar es Salaam. Most of the traffic consisted of pedestrians walking in the pitch dark on the side of the road until we’d pick up them up as dusty silhouettes in our headlights. There were only a few moments when I dug my nails into my hands but the driver was cautious (it’s the other drivers I worry about) and regularly spaced speed bumps kept the speed of all cars down. This is the road along which refugees streamed into Tanzania, 14 years ago from Rwanda and last month from Kenya.

Upon entering Arusha the driver told me proudly that the town now has its first set of traffic lights. The installation of the light was not without glitches: one side did not get a light leaving cars from that direction bewildered as to when and how to cross the newly regulated square. It took a few days of policemen observing the oversight and angry letters in the paper to correct the mistake.

Once you pass the lights, tall street lights are planted (but not lit on Sunday night apparently) on each side of the main road that leads to the (Coca Cola) Clock Tower roundabout, presumably the city center as well as the location of the hotel. Clearly this second largest city of Tanzania is coming of age and traffic lights are one of its latest accomplishments. Go, Arusha, go!

The boom is fueled by tourists (now including those chased from Kenya) and I suppose the business surrounding the UN Tribunal on Rwanda. There is also the rebirth of the East Africa Community in 2000 or so after its disintegration in the 70s due to fundamental incompatibilities between socialist Tanzania, capitalist Kenya and the Uganda dictatorship of Amin.

Today I met the team that I will be working with. We had a productive first morning of work, setting goals for this week and putting our collective knowledge about challenges for senior leaders on the table. There was much convergence among these experiences, so we are off to a good start. I learned that the course is already announced in the course brochure and slated for November of this year.