Time unfolding: Classical host Steve Staruch travels to Tanzania

My recent life-changing trip to Tanzania began at a shoe store. Our group leader stressed the need for lightweight, sturdy footwear for walking on the hot city streets of Iringa and Arusha, along the dusty unpaved roads of the countryside and in the scrubby growth of the Serengeti. New shoes were a must for me and my wife, Naomi. So, with shoes on and bags packed, our group began the 20-hour trip from Minneapolis to East Africa. Hours in the air are counted one by one, but those hours felt like minutes once we arrived in Dar es Salaam.

Tanzanian time doesn't flow as much as it unfolds. It's not just that the pace of life is slower, which it is, but that the clock doesn't seem so important. Past and present walk together in Africa. In fact, past and present move like dancers, and their dance is everywhere.

Our first day in Tanzania was spent on a bus traveling the 10 hours to Iringa in the center of the country. A group from the local church had been waiting for us. We weren't even out of the bus before the shouts of "Karibu!" ("Welcome!") and singing and dancing greeted us. The exuberance and the joy and the hospitality were overwhelming. Our tears flowed. It was like being welcomed home.

And it was like that everywhere we traveled during our first week in Tanzania, whether to schools or churches, or an orphanage, the wonderful dancing and singing, the same exuberance, the same joy — and always that feeling of home.

In one community (a church where the members are mostly of the Wahehe tribe), all of us visitors were given a token of family — the men, a new shirt, the women, a colorful fabric wrap called a konga. My shirt continues to remind me of the closeness of my Tanzanian brothers and sisters and for that reason is a prized possession.

That same afternoon, a small Tanzanian boy made playful eye contact with me. (Did he see the smiling eyes of his favorite uncle or just an older playmate?) He ran up and laughingly jumped into my lap. After bouncing on "Uncle Steve's" knee, my giggling "nephew" ran off to explore other games.

Sad farewells came at the end of the week, but we were headed to new adventures in the north of the country — to Aringa and safari. In order to get to our destination, we had to take a small prop plane. No one told us that we would land on a gravel road. As the door opened (we survived!), we met our guides for safari: Kisana, Killerai and Maggie (one of only six female safari guides in Tanzania!).

Nothing prepares you for the nobility and beauty of African animals in their habitat. Tears of amazement and profound thankfulness greeted our first sighting of an elephant. Laughter and gasps of joy accompanied the first sight of the wildebeest migration. There are no words to describe miles of wildebeests galloping from one horizon to the other.

The Serengeti belongs to the wild. We were always careful to understand that. And out of respect for the wild, as well as for our safety, we never left our jeeps.

For the most part, the giraffes, the elephants (we saw more than 450 one day), the lions (!), the zebras, the hippos, the cranes, the vultures, the storks, the gazelles, the ibex, the water buffalo, the monkeys, the ostriches and the warthogs didn't really pay us any mind. Occasionally, we would hear them, but mostly it was the sound of the wind on the fragrant northern Tanzanian plains that greeted us each day.

The plane trip home was long. The dance of past and present came to an end as Naomi and I returned to our nontraveler lives. Jobs awaited. Still, doors that we didn't know existed in our hearts and minds were opened on this trip.

I think those doors will stay open for a while. Taking a break from shoveling these past weeks I happen to look down. The dry red dust of Tanzania still caked on my new sturdy and light-weight shoes was slowly mixing — dancing, really — with the snow of Minnesota.

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