Back after holiday haitus!
> thanks so much for the amazing array of birthday wishes! incredible
> website effort mom/marcia!!

hometown.aol.com/marciawdc/daphne.html

so touching! i had mostly forgotten it was
> my birthday, though happy enough to be 40 -
> i had gone out on safari with Dave Bryden who's been visiting from dc,
> to arusha national park. it is an amazing resource less than an hour
> from arusha, far less visited than serengeti, etc- we walked with an
> armed ranger on an incredible 1.5 hour walk into the foothills of mount
> meru- had a close brush with the fierce warthogs- actually completely
> harmelss but when we startled a group hiding in bushes causing them to
> bolt i jumped behind the ranger with the gun and i think i heard david
> yelp. we also walked amongst stately giraffe, by the actually dangerous
> heards of water buffalo, and got beautiful views from a lookout point up
> in the hills. then canoed around hippos and waterbuffalo forging accross
> the lake in front of us- all in all exhilerating.
> It's been fun to have david around as he's taken the initiative to seek
> out interesting individuals and groups while here- in Nairobi we visited
> a group working on battling male-female stereotypes who conduct
> trainings to help men be good partners to their women, in tanzania we
> visited with a widows' group, an orphanage, and through taking david
> around my life here conducted a bit of a 'reality tour'. for example he
> could see the life of the housegirls working 7 days a week in my
> ex-homestay, and got to know the situation of the guides and porters who
> are my friends, met with the agricultural trainers in neighboring
> village Tengeru. My guide friends run a safari company but started
> explaining it to us in ways they never had explained it to me on my own.
> They are unique in that they are all former guides and porters who run
> the company, and share the money in an equitable way after putting aside
> money for office expenses, amongst office workers and porters and
> guides. This differs from the standard safari company run by
> entrepreneurs who've never done the tough work themselves, make a big
> profit and pay their guides and porters a fraction. This is a group of
> porters and guides who got fed up with their treatment and found a
> benefactor to branch off and start up a company of their own. They also
> direct funds to a local orphanage and some other development projects-
> this was the orphanage david and i visited. yet they have nothing in
> their brochures advertising any of this as a selling point! and had
> never bothered to mention any of it to me although i've been friends
> with them for months- David and i are trying to get them to revamp their
> image to play up this grass-roots, worker owned and run element, as we
> know many travelers are rightly concerned about the porters/guides.
> Imagine if they were advertised as such in the lonely planet guidebook-
> they'd be flooded with clients! It's funny I don't find a strong
> capitalistic/entrepreneurial streak running through a lot of the
> tanzanians! bye for now/ out of time! love daphne
>