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The parched Tanzanian interior is dusted with a fine ochre film. I feel the grit in my mouth as our 5-ton truck bounces through the heat. We lurch along a grueling rutted road through the savannah. We’re on a mission from the dusty village of Kasulu—a village friend calls “the dirtiest place in the world” to Kigoma, on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. In the back a pregnant woman is bleeding—to death, if we don’t get her to a hospital soon. The day before Jonathan, Chuck and myself had set out to rescue a group of Tanzanians stranded between the two villages, victims of a mechanical breakdown. We left Kigoma in an SUV for Kasulu, 100 kilometers away, to retrieve the two dozen men, women and children. Halfway to Kasulu we jounced into the village of Kwaga and spied their disabled truck in the road, hood reaching forlornly for the sky. It was surrounded by passengers needing safe haven—bandits rule these roads at night--so we packed twelve into the SUV. There was no room for me and Chuck and the rest so we stayed with the truck while Jonathan drove on to Kasulu, hopefully to return before nightfall for us. We nursed the truck to life and limped to Kwaga's only mechanic. In late afternoon Jonathan returned for us and the remaining Tanzanians. We stuffed twelve people into the SUV and headed for Kasulu. And then the most wondrous thing happened. The Africans broke into a joyous hymn. On a day marred by mechanical breakdown, lack of food and water, numbing heat and crying babies, they rejoice and sing. I was stunned by that one charming, ephemeral moment. Two hours later we reached Kasulu and as the light faded the day’s second wondrous thing occurs. Thousands, then millions of termites hatch. Their delicate silvery wings catch the moonlight and the ground is a shimmering carpet that rises into the darkness—an enchanting snowfall in reverse. It’s a blizzard of fragile life, enchanting and captivating. The next day we head back to Kigoma and stop in Kwaga to retrieve the truck when villagers rush toward us, carrying a woman on a stretcher. She is bleeding heavily and will surely bleed to death. She needs hospital care, and soon. We take her and speed toward the Kigoma hospital. We make it and she lives. And I think: What are the odds that on a rarely traveled road we happen through an isolated village precisely when someone needs emergency transportation? Infinitesimal, I say. And that was wondrous thing number three.