After 2 full days of traveling I am finally here! I started out with a flight from JFK to London, and then had a 10 hour layover. I celebrated not being on a plane for the first time in 7 hours by having some Bangers and Mash (sausage and mashed potatoes) in the Heathrow airport. After that I had a 9 hour flight from London to Nairobi, then took a charter plane from Nairobi to Kilimanjaro. The last flight was interesting- they played jazz music to calm people down and I think the total barf count was 3 (luckily I was not one of them). By far the best part of getting here was the drive from Arusha to Karatu Tanzania. The land here is unlike anything Ive seen. There will be flat fields and dust and all the sudden a mountain will pop up out of nowhere! We stopped a few times for goats and cattle crossing the road, and also to rubberneck at the giraffes we saw! The amount of money you have to carry here is ridiculous. One US dollar is about 1500 Tanzanian shillings. I had to resist the temptation to make it rain when I exchanged my money at the airport :). I am staying in a small Banda, which is kind of like a bunkhouse, with 3 other people. My Banda is called “Tembo” which means elephant in Swahili. I am picking up a few words little by little, and so far I know how to say hello (jambo), thank you (asante), cheetah (chui), welcome (karibu) and “sawa sawa” which means okie dokie. There are only 28 people in my program, so I’m sure we’ll all be very close by the end! Most of my professors are natives of either Tanzania or Kenya, although one is from Germany. When we’re not in class we go running, play soccer, play cards or just soak up the sun and talk. Those of you who know me well will be pleased to hear that I only get cold in the morning, which is far less than usual, so I think Tanzania suits me well!

Location: Karatu, Tanzania