25-7-2007

01Aug07

I have just returned home from a week long journey to a small southern village off the shore of Lake Tanganyika. I went down there with a team of 8 adults from South Valley Community Church, 4 other “interns,” 9 nationals, 3 doctors, and Harold and Coni. Here is an account of the first day of travelToday we embarked on our journey on the Liemba, the world’s oldest operating ship in the world. The ship’s history is as follows…

The MV Leimba, formerly the Graf von Götzen, is a passenger ferry which runs along the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika. The ship was built in 1913 by the Germans, and used as a war vessel on Lake Tanganyika during World War I. , formerly the Graf von Götzen, is a passenger ferry which runs along the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika. The ship was built in 1913 by the Germans, and used as a war vessel on Lake Tanganyika during World War I. When the Germans were retreating from the British invasion of Kigoma, the captain, in fear of having his ship destroyed, sank the ship. It was later resurrected by the British, renamed, and then put back into action as a war ship. Today the great MV Liemba has been disarmed and is nothing more then a ferry owned by the Tanzania Railways Corp. It servers the villages and towns along the lake shore as a passager boat, running between Burundi, Tanzania, and Zambia.

Now back to my story…
The ride there proved to be a delightful event. We boarded alone in the port of Kigoma on a warm breezy day and set sail on schedule. It was smooth sailing as we left the port and made our way south along the shoreline of Lake Tanganyika. The ship atmosphere was light and airy up on deck and the soft melodies of Tanzania dance videos played on in the lounge. We all made our way up to the top deck and relaxed as the sun set slowly over the smokey Congo horizon. The moon was almost full and the fishermen were out, the lights from their boats bobbing with the lifting of the waves like floating water village. It really was one of the more peaceful and beautiful sights thus far on my trip. The cabins were a bit tight with all the gear we had packed for our outreach but it was easy to fall asleep to the soft rocking of the ship over the gentle motion of the waves. The next morning we woke around 8:30 AM and had a nice egg and bean breakfast before packing up and preparing to disembark. There are only a couple of ports on Lake Tanganyika so we had to have a water taxi meet us out in the middle of the lake so we could transfer our luggage, and ourselves, onto the smaller boat to be taken ashore. As prepared to board our water taxi I was a bit nervous after hearing horror stories of people falling into the water and being crushed between the two boats but when the time came all ran smoothly.

Village life to follow…

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