we are fine

Last Wednesday night J was out of the city checking a water project in Dodoma. I was enjoying a quiet night at home. Then I heard a bomb go off and kind of wondered if it was at the American Embassy (as has happened before, 1998, masterminded by a complete asshole that you might have heard of, Osama bin Laden). Then I heard more bombs and assumed I didn't have to worry about another country's navy shelling the port as surely I would have heard about ships massing off the coast. Surely. But then the explosions kept happening and only a few were powerful enough to shake the building or alarm me. After a while it became background noise and I went about my day (evening). Eventually JC and NC came over to tell me not to worry, the munitions depot was on fire for the second time in two years (!). Tragically people were killed and many were injured in the fire. Friends of mine saw explosions light up the sky and some had to be evacuated from their buildings as they were shaking the multi-story buildings to an uncomfortable degree.

You can read about it here and here. It is kind of unbelievable that there would be a munitions depot inside a city (in fairness, the city limits grow by a lot every year) and that it would be near the airport (air traffic was shut down for 24 hours).

I was reminded of my Grandfather telling me about climbing up to sit on Citadel Hill and watching the munitions fire at Magazine Hill.