Pompeii 2.0

In an earlier blog post I mentioned that the city of Arusha is located at the base of Mount Meru. I also mentioned that it is an active volcano - the last time it erupted being in 1910, although this was just a minor eruption. Most of the bulk of the volcano was blasted away previously in an event similar to the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. This original eruption was said to have happened 8,000 years ago, which I don't believe is true (the earth not being that old and all), but when you look at it you can definitely see that there has been a major eruption there at some point in the past.

On Monday night Michael and Dorris went to the Rotary Club to speak about Neema House. Shermaine went along with them as she is part of the young people's Rotaract club in Dubai. The other speaker for the evening was a volcanologist from Belgium who has come to petition the government of Tanzania to purchase a seismometer for Mt Meru. Apparently it is true that Mt Meru is overdue to erupt at the moment. They expected a hundred years after 1910 to be the next major eruption and as we all know, it is now 2013. In a lot of countries this wouldn't be a big problem - there would be seismograph equipment on the mountain that would let us know when there was volcanic activity and then an evacuation would be possible. 

However, there is no seismograph equipment on the mountain so our only warning signs will be the physical signs that come from the mountain itself - just like Vesuvius in 79AD. Michael said to the volcanologist, "How close are we to Mt Meru?" He replied, "You are ON Mt Meru." Apparently here we are at ground zero! Should a major eruption occur it would wipe the whole city of Arusha out completely.

I laughed when Shermaine told me this. She was surprised and said, "Is this how you deal with fear?!" To be honest, I'm not scared. Sure, it could erupt but frankly I don't think that God worked everything together for me to come to Tanzania, only to die in a volcano blast. There were a lot of bad things that I thought could happen over here - muggings, malaria, snake bite, etc. Never did I imagine a volcano might be the chief worry!

However, if I have learned anything so far in my time here, it is to live each and every day as it comes; no real planning (that is not the African way!) - only trusting God to provide our needs. He looked after us today and will look after us tomorrow, no matter what comes.

xoxo (or "zarkzo" as Nick's screen reader will pronounce it),

-Hannah