Arriving to that really far away place

Bam! I’m in Africa! I arrived last night at 10:30 after travelling 23 hours. Whew! The best part is we got all our luggage. Last year, Ginny, a volunteer, never got her suitcase. I just thought, I gotta get my tampons! So I flew from Seatac -> Amsterdam and from Amsterdam -> Kilamenjaro. Marty and I sat next to each other and I had TWO empty seats so I spread out and slept! I was soo happy! There were a lot of people on the flight to climb Mt. Kili. One guy from Israel who lives in Boston paid $1200 to hike it. An Irish girl paid $1700. She was super cute. We were stuck by the bathrooms because the flight attendants were dishing out dinner. I ate like a queen! Two dinners both flights. My favorite was the ciabatta rolls, blondie cookies, (got 3 more from the attendant!), the pizza, and the tart pudding/flan. What else? Oh from Kili -> Dar es Salaam was only an hour but I got to sit by a cute chap from England. He paid $4000 total for his trip and didn’t summit Kili. Poor guy. But he was so cute and blonde and had the kind of British accent like Harry Potter. Nice way to arrive in Africa. :) We arrived and it was muggy! I didn’t feel freaked out when I saw all the black people. I have been a bit intimidated and just more anxious back home when I saw black people cuz I think I was thinking too much about it. But since I’ve been here, I don’t feel like the only white person and starred at. I am the only white person but maybe because I’m in Dar, it’s big, and there are other nationalities like East Indian, so that it’s not a big deal or what I imagined. I will be starred at in Manow I know but the people in the area will also be safer.

Oh so we get out of the airport, Nancy, Marty and I and the best part was: LIZ! She picked us up (we got a taxi) and I was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo excited to see her! The guys standing around the airport to drive taxis smiled a little cuz we were acting a bit crazy. I’m so glad I got to see her and she’s spending the week with us. She’s in PeaceCorps and teaching chemistry in Southeastern Tanzania. Fortunately she had a break, so she was able to see us.

I slept from midnight to 6am. Wow that was incredible! Especially since I slept so much on the plane. We are at an Econolodge and the stay is good. We ate at a small restaurant for breakfast: chapatti (40₡) eggs, this fried bread with meat and onions inside and passion fruit juice amazingness. Chapatti-I’m sold. It’s like a thick tortilla. We’ll be eating that daily for the school with mandazi, a fluffy fried roll.

Altogether for the four of us was 14,000 shillings, about 12 bucks. Wow. It would be easy $30-40 in the states. And actually this meal was expensive. Sadly the shilling is getting weaker for Tanzania. But even if it didn’t it’s nice how inexpensive food will be for this whole three month adventure!

Nambowizi—How’s it going.

Jo-oh—It’s cool

I ate at Bariki Makapeji’s house. I went to an LDS church. I’m soo glad we could. At Umbungo we had to buy bus tickets from there to Tukuyu and what an experience. Men are hounding you left and right. “Where are you going? Hello. Hey sister.” Very entertaining. Tangazwezi—ginger beer equivalent. And we’re on a mission to get that tonight nyam choma.