Mission Rabies Tanzania 2025 - The Journey Begins

I guess this counts as Day Zero. My journey begins today — and compared to many of my fellow volunteers, I’ve got it easy. Some started their odyssey yesterday: Denver to JFK, JFK to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Kilimanjaro. Others are slogging through Atlanta or Chicago before even boarding the long haul to Africa.

Me? I’ve been in Amsterdam for six days — part vacation, part strategic jet-lag prevention. From here it’s just nine hours to Kilimanjaro, with only a one-hour time difference. As I get older, long flights and time-zone whiplash hit harder, so you gotta play it smart.

I went to bed at 10 p.m. with plans to wake at 5:45. Naturally, my brain had other plans and kicked on at 3:00 a.m. First thing I did was check my phone for messages from KLM or Schiphol — nothing. Miraculously, the flight is still on schedule.

Because of the KLM ground workers’ strike (which could mean delayed or lost baggage), I bought a cheap little carry-on and loaded it with essentials from my big checked bag. If the suitcase goes AWOL, I’ll still have enough to get by for a few days.

Security was a breeze. Passport control, not so much. Just as I was about to go through the self-scanners, they shut half of them down and shuffled us into six new ones. Chaos, but brief.

Passport Control - no fun.

Soon enough, I was in the Aspire Lounge, breakfasting on pancakes and croissants, courtesy of my free Priority Pass — a perk of using my Chase Sapphire Reserve Card. Boarding’s in 90 minutes; I’ll head out soon to see if I can spot some fellow volunteers. I told them to look for my highly-coveted, bright yellow Mission Rabies wristband. Kids in the villages used to go nuts for these wristbands when we handed them out. I think they’ve been discontinued. I hope they’ve started making them again. They were pure joy in silicone.

And for anyone reading who isn’t familiar with Mission Rabies: here’s the quick version. Mission Rabies is a global charity with a deceptively simple playbook — vaccinate dogs to stop rabies at its source, teach communities how to prevent bites, and collect precise data so health officials know where to focus next.

The longer version — the one I prefer as a retired vet who still loves a good dog story — goes like this:

Rabies isn’t just horror-movie fodder. It’s the deadliest viral disease on earth. Once symptoms appear, it’s 100% fatal. Every year, 59,000 people die, mostly children in Africa and Asia. Nearly all of those deaths are preventable.

Over 99% of cases in endemic regions come from dog bites. Vaccinate the dogs, and rabies plummets. The magic threshold is 70% coverage. Hit that, and the virus runs out of hosts. It’s not drama, it’s math.

Mission Rabies makes that math work: large-scale campaigns, military precision, relentless data collection. Every shot is logged in an app, every map updated in real time. “We vaccinated a lot” becomes: this many dogs, this exact area, this precise hour. Gaps get identified, mop-up teams move in. Governments listen when the evidence is airtight.

And it works. In 2018, I joined a campaign in Goa, India. Four years earlier, rabies deaths there were common. By the time I arrived, the numbers were dropping fast. That year, Goa recorded zero rabies deaths — and hasn’t looked back since. India’s first rabies-controlled state.

So yes, the numbers matter. But the heart of it — the part that hooks me — is the adventure with purpose. Waking at dawn, loading vaccine coolers, rattling down dirt roads. Learning “good morning” in Swahili. Seeing a wary street dog finally get his jab. Kids waving, families handing you tea just for vaccinating their dog, swapping stories with fellow volunteers at the end of the day. Friendships that last long after the campaign ends.

For veterinarians, it feels like a calling. Back home, rabies is theoretical. Nobody dies of canine rabies in the U.S. But out here, it’s deadly and cruel. It punishes families for loving their dogs in places where vaccines are scarce. Mission Rabies shows up where the risk is highest, does the unglamorous work of prevention, and sticks with it until the numbers change. It’s heroism without the cape. And I’m grateful, in retirement, to have found a way to be part of it.

This is my fifth Mission Rabies project — and I hope it won’t be the last.

Just got word that one of the volunteers, Doug, is already at the gate. Time to finish my tea, pack up, and go meet him.

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Here I sit, on the plane, aisle seat secured, and ready for the long haul. The in-flight movie selection looks decent, and I’ve got my trusty little MacBook, on which I’m typing this right now, so keeping busy shouldn’t be a problem. Schiphol, though—what a trek. The Aspire Lounge to Gate F8 felt like a marathon, but I finally arrived and immediately spotted Doug from his WhatsApp photo. Quick introductions, and before long Pam and Peggy showed up.

Meeting Doug at the gate

Doug, Pam, and Peggy are seasoned veterans, like me.  The rest, I think, are newbies. I like how Mission Rabies balances things out—pairing rookies with veterans when the teams are assembled. It makes sense, and it works. I’m looking forward to meeting the rest of the group. Six hours to go until wheels touch down.

Reunion with Peggy at Schipol

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Touchdown!

We landed! Doug and I were near the front of the plane, so we got off together and made our way to immigration. Plenty of passengers were lined up for their “visa on arrival,” but we’d both done ours online weeks ago, which shaved off some time. Not much, but enough. Immigration and passport control were mercifully uneventful, and soon we were outside where I spotted a big guy in a yellow Mission Rabies shirt—Noel, a familiar face. He’s a Tanzanian who’s been working with Mission Rabies for years.

There were more introductions: Alisha, who, along with Fran, will be running the show, and Nan, a veterinarian from Florida making her Mission Rabies debut. Pam and Peggy were still tangled up in the visa-on-arrival line, so the staff sent me, Doug, and Nan ahead with one of the drivers to the guesthouse, a forty-minute ride.

At the guesthouse, Fran was waiting to greet us—our other fearless leader. I also briefly met Greg, Kristen, and Monet, who had arrived earlier and were already settled in. Fran ushered us into the dining area, clearly anticipating hungry travelers, and she was right. The airline had offered lunch but only a token slice of pizza for dinner—I could have polished off six of them—so the spread waiting for us felt like heaven: tomato and avocado salad, a thermos of what I think was pumpkin soup (whatever it was, it was delicious), and a big pot of fettuccine with vegetables. We dug in gratefully, and then drifted off to our rooms, each of us in varying states of exhaustion.

Nice to have food waiting for us late arriving volunteers

I’d only been on the move for ten hours. Some of the others were hitting probably hitting hour twenty-three (and maybe longer.)

For a small extra fee, I’d asked for my own room—insomnia and I are old adversaries, and if someone coughed in Arusha, I’d probably hear it. My room is perfect: a queen bed, a smaller single tucked in the corner, and a table with two chairs where I’ve parked my laptop to write all this down. Midnight now. Time to hit the sack.

My room. Big bed with mosquito netting, a little table for writing my blog posts, and an extra single bed, which served as my luggage stand.