Everywhere I look

I see Tanzania!

So my month-long quest for herbal antimalarial was at last requited this week. Thank you, Lord! I had just arrived at that place of desperation where I said, "Okay, if the next store I go to doesn't sell it, I'll just buy some botanical mosquito repellant and use that faithfully while I'm there." I had been to about ten health stores and organic stores and pharmacies to no avail. Finally, at try number ten, the guy tells me to check out a store he knows "Run by a sweet little Indian lady" not far from my house. I go looking for it, and it isn't there. I stop by a near-by community centre to ask if they know where there's an herbal store in the area, and they point me right to it. (It was in fact in a different shopping centre than I was originally directed to, so this time I can't blame my not finding it on Kitchener's winding streets; it was a mistake by the guy who told me about it.) At last I pull into the proper shopping centre, and there is this little health food store looking at me. I go inside expecting a 'sweet little Indian lady', but there's only a man behind the counter. Oh well. I ask him if he carries neem (that's the herbal antimalarial that I learned about from the girls who went to East Timor with me--it doesn't have all the nasty side effects of taking perscription antimalarials and is just as effective and even good for you--it's been used for hundreds of years in south India, I learned from the label!), and he says right away, "Of course. But it's at my other store." All the other times I asked for it, people looked at me like I'd been eating crazy pills. One store occasionally carried neem toothpaste, and another neem shampoo (don't know what that's supposed to do for you!), and the last guy, when I explained it's a blood purifier that's used as an antimalarial and the oil from the tree as a pesticide, looked at me like I drank rat poison on a regular basis.

Anyway, the guy calls up his other store, and tells me it will be sent over the next day (Saturday) so I can pick it up then. When I get back on Saturday, he gives me the neem, and I ask about maybe getting a second bottle if possible. He wonders why I want it, and I tell him that I'm going to Tanzania.

"Tanzania?! I'm from Tanzania!" He told me proudly. I was taken a bit aback, because he didn't look African. He had an accent, but we had talked on Friday about moving to Canada from the States, because he used to live in LA. But he's from Tanzania! Then he said a few things in Swahili, which I understood but didn't know how to reply to! Truly amazing, eh? So I asked if I could bring him back anything, and he says, "let me call my wife. She's from Kenya, she'll want something." And we talked and talked about Tanzania and Dar es Salaam, and who's the president now, and what will you be doing, and all that. It was such a wonderful time! So I'll be bringing a few things back for he and his wife, and they'll hook me up with all the herbal goodness I need to take with me, and God will continue to weave all things together for the good of those who love Him.

I'm so excited. Just Wednesday my friend Dana (she inspires me to do a lot of things!) asked me if I was seeing Tanzania everywhere. I was kinda like, I don't know, I guess? It's like when you learn a new word, you suddenly hear everyone use it from the newscasters to your pastor the next Sunday in church. And I was hoping for that, but it just wasn't there yet for Tanzania. Then that very night I had my first dream about Tanzania, and two days later I meet someone from Tanzania, and I hear from my friend Nicola who is there now, and it's so good and beautiful! Soon I'll be standing there, on the shore looking out over the ocean to Zanzibar, or on a street corner looking at the city of Dar es Salaam, or at the beside of a woman, encouraging her as she brings the next generation of Tanzanians into the world. I'm on my way!