My Journal

Home Safe!

alikolb — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 09:49:00 GMT

So I'm sure everyone knows by now that we've returned home safely... I've been working hard to get my thousands of pictures organized and I finally created an album of my favorite photos from the trip. It was difficult to pick and I got a bit lazy with captioning towards the end, but I thought I'd share the link with anyone who is interested.

http://cid-f902d9d5038f12c6.skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?page=play&resid=F902D9D5038F12C6!106&Bpub=SDX.Photos&Bsrc=GetSharingLink

Zanzibar

alikolb — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 23:51:00 GMT

So I don't have much time but I wanted to do an update -- it will probably be my last one before I get home! But Zanz was AMAZING... we tried to search for jobs while we were there but no one wanted to hire us :(. It was definitely a tourist destination though... I saw more mzungu there than I have in my whole time in Tanzania! We arrived and spent a couple days in Stone Town, which was seriously awesome. I have never seen water that beautiful, and combined with the Middle Eastern architecture/influence it was beautiful! There were tons of old boats (called dhows) dotting the coast and palaces from when Omani sultans ruled. However, Zanzibar is 97% Muslim, so we walked around the city for about two hours searching for SOMEWHERE that could serve us a drink (that didn't cost 12,000 Tsh)... at least we got to see the area! After Stone Town we made our way to Nungwi, on the northern tip of Zanz. It's known for being the only area in Zanz that has any kind of nightlife, so we had a good time there. We also went on a sunset cruise on a dhow for a little over $5... well worth it! It was gorgeous! The day we meant to spend on the beach in Nungwi was overcast and raining so we went to our next destination early and were so glad we did -- it was so beautiful! It was a small hotel in between two larger cities (Paje and Jambiani) so it was pretty much isolated. We had a whole house to ourselves, and we saw maybe 5 other people total on our beach. We went snorkeling there and it was so great. The water was so awesome and I got to see all my friends from Finding Nemo and Ocean Lotto. I could have probably spent 10 hours snorkeling, but we had to go back after a couple because of the tides. It was so cool, I wish I had bought an underwater camera! We made lots of friends and had some good seafood... all in all, an amazing trip. All five of us have decided that our honeymoons will consist of climbing Kilimanjaro and then relaxing in Zanzibar... perfect, right? We were sad we had to leave but are busy finishing everything up in our last week in Arusha... we have lots to do! I forgot if I had already mentioned, but Emily and I decided to use Peter's fundraised money to install bathroom doors at the orphanage we help at, and they came today! They are beautiful; I was expecting crappy pieces of wood but they are awesome doors! We're going to paint them white tomorrow and then have the kids do colored handprints all over them... hopefully it will liven the place up a bit! Lots to do in these last few days, but I will be home soon! Baadaye!

Link to Glorious Orphanage

alikolb — Sun, 1 Aug 2010 21:13:00 GMT

Hi everyone,

Today is a lazy Sunday so I have had some time to look around on the internet and I found a link to the orphanage I volunteer at. Here it is: http://www.gloriousorphanage.com/home. Someone who had volunteered there created it and it's actually pretty good. I love the pictures and bios of Alice and Julius the most -- they are some of the most amazing people I've met and the website doesn't even tell half of what they do. They are so amazing! There is also a way to donate using PayPal... but I would love to talk in person once I'm home about what your money would be used for, should you choose to donate.

I'm really excited because there's a five-year-old boy at the orphanage (Juma) that has some disease that makes him unable to walk without assistance and fills his head with lots of fluid, enlarging his head quite a bit. The other day some of the volunteers who have been there a bit longer than we have took Juma to the special needs hospital about an hour away and set him up with crutches for at least two years and physical therapy for the next two weeks. Since it's so far away, Juma is staying at the hospital, so we will miss him lots... he is the sweetest kid ever! We're going to go visit him though once he gets settled in... it was just so great to see people my age making such a difference. I'm excited to find a great way to spend the money that Peter has raised!

I have some time on the internet so I'll just give some random updates I suppose... no need to read if you're pressed for time! Just a funny story. On Friday, we woke up just a bit late to get to Glorious. Somehow we had all overslept, so we decided we would take a cab there instead of a daladala. One of the girls who lives at our house had gotten this huuuuge box of shirts she wanted to donate to the orphanage, so it was also good that we were going to take a cab because the box probably would not have fit on the dala. Our plan was to walk to the main road and find a cab there... but about two steps out of our gate we had already dropped the box like 5 times and were seriously struggling. Thankfully, our really nice neighbor was driving by and offered to drive us to a spot where we could get a taxi, even though she was going the opposite way. We had never really spoken to this woman (although we talk to her husband sometimes) but we were so thankful -- I have no idea how we would have made it!! We got a taxi to the orphanage and were happy that we were bringing gifts, as we were a bit late. During lunch, we opened the box and realized that all the shirts were adult extra larges...a bit too big for the kids. They were bright yellow collared polos with the logo of a local airline... very funny looking. We decided we would take some to the AIDS widows that Alice has to her house every day to make jewelry and batiks and then Alice could sell the rest at the market for money for the kids. We went to see the women and they were all pretty old and they were just so happy to see us and got a total kick out of the shirts. They all put them on and were dancing and strutting around and laughing their heads off. It was pretty funny to see and we had no idea what they were saying, but we were laughing as well. It was just a great time and we want to go back and hang out with the women more often. I think I told this story pretty poorly but regardless, it was a great time. I'm very tired so I apologize for the rambling, but hopefully a couple people enjoyed it! My internet time is running out, I'm sure I'll have more exciting updates to give after my trip to Zanzibar! Kwa heri!

Facts about Arusha.

alikolb — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 21:18:00 GMT

So today I have a bit of time but not a lot to write about so I thought I would post the "random things about Arusha" that I've been keeping in my journal. First an update on my life --- I've grown really accustomed to living here and things like houses made out of tarps don't even really phase me any more. It's weird, but I love that we've gotten to know the people in our neighborhood, the people we ride the daladala with every day (Em had a giant African woman sit on her lap in an especially crowded dala today -- everyone thought it was hilarious). We are both SOOOO happy with how our placements ended up -- we just love Glorius but also love seeing our Patandi kids twice a week. The woman who runs Glorius is just cool... on Friday she's taking us to the tailor to get African clothes made for us as a thank-you, she's just so sweet. She started Glorius for all the poor kids in the area and also houses people with AIDS and has them make jewelry and batiks which she sells. She's so great! (Although her cooking could use some help...). But yeah, I finally feel like everything is great here and going so well. I'm just freaking out that my time is already half over!!! I don't want to leave!!

Anyways, here are some facts about Arusha that I've collected thus far (just to give everyone an idea of where I live!):

1. They use speed bumps as the way of enforcing slow speeds in town... there are literally giant speed bumps like every 2 minutes and cars have to slow waaaaay down to go over them... it gets so annoying!

2. We have to buy credit for our cell phones (like a pay as you go I think?). No cell phone plans exist.

3. There are no road signs or addresses except in the touristy area... and we have found two traffic lights! (very exciting)

4. There is garbage EVERYWHERE... the river is disgusting and I think that they use above ground sewers or something... I don't really get it. Everyone just burns their garbage on the side of the street... I don't know how a million fires don't start!

5. So many dogs, goats, and chickens all over. Also lots of people selling this weird corn and some sort of nut.

6. Every morning at 5:30 AM we wake up to the roosters, the Muslim call to prayer, cows, and blaring music. Today the music was seriously out of control all night... we still haven't been invited to this all night dance party!

7. Literally all bar and store signs have this picture of a woman drinking Coke... we don't get it.

8. All younger girls have short hair (like buzz cuts) -- apparently it's cleaner. Thank God they wear skirts or things could get difficult for us, especially with the younger kids!

9. Every day begins incredibly overcast and freezing (maybe about 60 degrees?) but by 1:00 the sun comes out and it's pretty hot... probably about 75/80.

10. Whenever there's a wedding a band goes around town with everyone at the wedding playing as people dance and just process... I want to bring this tradition back to the states!

Okay well I'm out of internet time so that's it for now... Tutaonana!!!

Update from Arusha...

alikolb — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 22:00:00 GMT

Pole sana, but this will be a rather disjointed update. I will try to organize it as best I can!

First, some updates on my volunteer placement. We spent last week in the "intellectually impaired" wing of Patandi. It was okay... the kids are great but we don't necessarily feel needed. Emily works with the younger kids and I'm with the older kids, and we both have only about 5 kids in our class. The teachers leave us alone to teach all day, which is a tad difficult considering we speak very limited Swahili. Then when student teachers from a local university showed up in our classroom, we really felt like the teachers and student teachers would be better for the students (as they can actually communicate with them). I had my difficulties teaching my kids how to read in Swahili (it was an experience!) and Emily had her difficulties with a particularly rowdy kid. However, due to immigration laws, we cannot completely change our placement, so we will still be going to Patandi on Mondays and Thursdays. I will be mostly teaching English on Mondays, and then most of Thursday is their "play day" which is fun. We're really glad with how it's working out because we didn't want to desert the kids, but teaching there every day was a bit stressful.

On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Fridays we will be going with a couple other people in our house to Glorius Orphanage, where we are certainly needed. Orphanages in Tanzania are more places for kids to go during the day, because they are most often taken in by their extended family instead of going to a Western-style orphanage. Many of the kids in our orphanage lost their parents to AIDS, but they are some of the sweetest kids ever. We help out with the younger kids (from age 3-6), and there are about 40 of them in one small room. They recite many things in English and are so darling! We also get to see more of Arusha with our two different placements, which is cool.

I guess I'll have to update more in-depth later, as my internet time is running out. A brief recap of this weekend --- on Saturday we went on a "vacation" to the touristy part of town. It took us a while to get there but it was worth it. It was like a whole different country! So nice! We treated ourselves to a delicious lunch (food at our home has been a bit sub-par) and an afternoon at the pool at a really nice hotel. Then on Sunday we went to Marangu and hiked to waterfalls (I couldn't resist swimming in them after our brutal hike... so refreshing!), hiked to the base of Kilimanjaro (very strenuous but cool to see, although it was cloudy so we couldn't really see much), met some guy who grew Kilimanjaro coffee in his backyard or something, held a wild chameleon we saw on the side of the road, tried banana beer (interesting), and saw a Chagga house/caves. It was fun but we were all very tired. Today Emily and I tried to go to the AICC Rwanda Tribunals but unfortunately they are on break until late August. We were pretty bummed, as they would have been really cool to see.

Sorry this update was all over the place, but I guess it's better than nothing, right? Tutaonana upesi!!!

An afternoon with the Maasai

alikolb — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 21:07:00 GMT

So yesterday was our visit to the Maasai village! Sonny, a guard at the volunteer house here in Arusha, generously offered to take like 15 of us to see his home. It was so neat and I'm so grateful I got to see the Maasai culture this way instead of as a touristy tack-on to a safari. For those of you who aren't familiar with the Maasai, you might want to quick Wikipedia them before reading this... it might make more sense with some background knowledge!

The day started, of course, on African time. After waiting for our driver for abut an hour and a half, we were off in our cramped little van. The first two hours of the trip were okay, but then we got to "the bush" and things got a little interesting. There were several occasions when we were sure that our van would not make it as the bottom scraped against rocks and who knows what else. To say it was a bumpy ride is an extreme understatment! It was also insanely dusty -- a lot of the time we couldn't see out the window because our van was kicking up so much dust. It was also insanely hot out so we would open the windows for a couple minutes when we could and then quickly slam them shut when we would be in a cloud of dust. If the road had been paved it probably would've taken about 15 minutes to drive, but it took us over an hour. It was quite the experience!!

Once we finally got to Sonny's village, we had to stop at the village office to sign the guestbook and to give the village our donation. After that, we continued on to the village. We got out of the van a ways back and started walking to the village. As we were walking towards the bomas, most of the village people were walking towards us, dancing and singing. Everyone was just so happy and welcoming! As we approached each other, the women came towards us and grabbed our hands (while still singing and dancing) and we walked into the village together. Then we all danced together for like 30 minutes... every time I thought we were finished and I could rest, someone started up a new song. It was so fun, and there were some seriously cute kids dancing all around.

After we were finished dancing, we sat on these benches and the women brought us "tea". I'm really not sure what it was, but we all tried to be polite and drink as much as we could. This was probably my least favorite part because we were being absolutely swarmed by flies (and the tea was not too delicious). Some of the kids' faces were literally covered with flies...they must really be used to it, but it was still hard to see.

After tea, we were taken over to meet our goat. We had to buy one of the Maasai's goats for dinner that day. The goat was pretty cute... it was sad knowing that he was going to be momentarily killed! We went over to this one area and some of the men wrestled the goat to the ground while a different guy got his machete ready. We tried to watch them slit the goat's neck without being totally grossed out and disrespectful, but it was pretty difficult. The sound alone could have made me sick. One man collected the goat's blood from its neck into a mug and then stirred it up with a stick... our appetizer was ready! I could not get myself to drink it, but some people from my homestay took a sip and then the men finished it off... it was seriously a giant mug of blood and the men just gulped it all down. Ok sorrrrry, I'll stop with the gory details... yuck yuck yuck. We went back over to the women as the men began to skin the goat.

Next Sonny came and got us to show us his home. It was pretty much what people think of when they think of "traditional Africa" -- mud walls with sticks for a roof. There was a tiny "room" you came into when you first entered, and then his wife's room was to the left and his room was to the right. They both had beds made of sticks and there was a fire ring in his wife's room. There was pretty much no light whatsoever... we tried asking Bruno (our translator) why they didn't like light in their homes and we were told it was just Maasai culture... I don't really get it.

After that, we went back to hang out with the women and children while the men cooked. It kind of sucked because the Maasai speak their own language (not Swahili) so it was pretty difficult to try to communicate with them. Bruno was running around trying to translate for everyone but it was pretty difficult. We also wanted to take tons of pictures (especially since the village was right near Kilimanjaro... so beautiful!) but felt kind of rude just coming into these peoples' home and snapping photos of them. Most of the Maasai actually enjoy getting their picture taken (and looking at it on your screen) or taking your camera and taking pictures of everything. It was just kind of awkward because it was difficult to communicate, but everyone was still incredibly friendly and welcoming. I managed to find some of the cutest little kids to play with them... they love giving high fives, so I did that for a while, but then I started jerking my hand away so they missed it. It turned into a whole game, and this one little kid (probably about 4 years old) just thought it was the most hilarious thing in the world. She was literally falling over because she was laughing so hard and she just had the cutest laugh ever.

After hanging out for a while, we were invited over to the area where the goat had been cooking (although the Maasai women and children were not invited -- they cannot eat with the men). To cook the goat, they build a fire and then put different parts of the goat on sticks and just put them around the fire. Once the goat is ready and we were all seated on benches, the men came around and stuck different parts of the goats in front of everyone there. Of course, with our luck, a man came a stuck the liver right in front of us. The men then take their giant knives and carve off bite-size pieces and pass them out. Again, not wanting to be rude, we tried our hardest to get the goat liver down our throats. After we managed to do that, we were handed pieces of pure fat... I'm really not sure which was grosser. Finally we got a couple pieces of meat... it was like heaven! The actual meat wasn't too bad, but getting to it was the difficult part.

Once we were finished, we went to get our gifts from the van. We brought cooking oil, flour, sugar, and things that that to give to the village since they don't have much access to those things. After that, some people in our group got the Maasai brand on their arms... traditionally, the Maasai brand a circle into their cheeks, so some people got the circle on their arms. The people in the village thought it was pretty entertaining and we just all hung out for a bit.

Finally, it was time to go! We asked Bruno how to say thank you in Maasai and tried to thank as many people as we could. It was really cute, as Sonny was getting into the car everyone was trying to come say bye to him... you could tell they really missed him! We then drove off into the dust... I spent the majority of the car ride home with my eyes closed to keep the dust out (completely unsuccessful)... but the day was great!

Today was also our first day at our school and it was quite an adventure that I'm sure I'll blog about shortly... but for now, I have to go cram some Swahili because our kids speak verrrry little English! Hope everyone is doing well!

this page just took 41 minutes to load... AHHHHHH

alikolb — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 21:54:00 GMT

hi everyone!! i'm so glad i get to give an update; the internet is being unbelievably slow today! so i've been in tanzania for over a week now and living in arusha for a little bit... it's so nice to feel like i'm figuring this town out. today emily and i got "un-lost" in only like 10 minutes -- we were so proud of ourselves!!! for all of you concerned about arusha being dangerous, it really isnt... getting lost is the biggest problem because there are very few street names and even fewer street signs. we always make sure we don't walk around at night, and arusha during the day is fine. it is such a busy city, there are always tons of people walking around, taking the dalla dalla, or screaming MAMBO MZINGU! (whats up white person!) all the time. most people i've met seem very nice... everyone is very eager to help us learn swahili.

this morning emily and i went to check out our placement!! there were some complications with our original one, so we actually ended up being placed at patandi school in the special needs area. it wasn't exactly what we wanted but after visiting today we're really excited. the school is about an hour away on crowded dalla dallas (i nearly passed out from the heat/being squished in every direction) but we made it there! the school is in a really beautiful part of town and the kids are all so sweet... we'll be working with kids dealing with cognitive disabilities, autism, blindness, and deafness. i'll be able to give more details later once we actually start teaching, but we're very excited to start. i tried googling it to see if there's anything online, but the internet was so slow that i gave up... let me know if you find anything!!

more volunteers arrived in the past couple days... we now have a very full house!! we got kate from england and evan from canada... everyone is great. AND rita (our housekeeper) just gave us a mat to sit on the dirt with... we are BEYOND EXCITED because now we can sit outside in the afternoons instead of sitting in the dark dark house! the weather here is beautiful in the afternoon... really sunny and like 80 degrees. although it gets very very cold when the sun is not out... i definitely didnt bring enough warm clothes!! emily and i are starting a list of interesting things about arusha... maybe we'll post it soon. i wish everyone could be here to see (and smell!) arusha with me! you'd have to enjoy rice and beans though... it is a treat if we have something else!

i can't think of much else to update you on! get excited for my next post... i'm going to a maasai village this weekend (and not a touristy one!)... one of the volunteer houses has a maasai guard and he has agreed to take us to his home, we're so excited to see it. we have to buy a goat from them and then eat it with them... i think emily and i have agreed not to drink its blood though. not worth getting some disease!

emily and i are living the good life and planning a trip with a few other girls to zanzibar... we've been getting really excited planning it. everyone says you CANNOT come to tanzania and not go to zanz so we have to go, so we're going to do a weekend trip in a few weeks.

for those who are commenting on my blog and e-mailing me, sorry i haven't responded to you! i can't even read the blog comments but i do read the e-mails... i just haven't had time to get back to them. i love reading the e-mails though (e-mail is preferable to blog comments!) and i will get back to you someday!

ARUSHA

alikolb — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 18:03:00 GMT

hi everyone! i figured i would give you a little bit of an idea what arusha is like... even though i've been here for only a week! it's very hard to explain... and we can't take any pictures so hopefully i'll kind of be able to give you an idea!

first of all, my homestay. i'm staying at mama zubeyda's with 5 other volunteers. there's emily, clare (australia), connie (canada), catherine (chicago), and terin (washington state). we might be getting a few guys today but we really have no idea. the girls are all SUPER nice, and clare and catherine have been here for a while so are really helpful with showing us the ropes. mama z is very wealthy by arusha standards, so our house is pretty nice...although our room is not so great. we have a room less than half of the size of my room at home with all 6 of us girls living in there. needless to say, it is very very cramped. also, the light doesn't really work and the window is blocked, so we have to use our head lamps whenever we're in there. the bathroom facilities are okay... to take a shower we have to heat water on the fire outside and then take bucket showers, but it's actually not that bad. the thing that really gets to me is the toilets here... they're basically just holes in the ground that, thankfully, in most places, flush. at mama z's we all chip in to buy toilet paper and then carry it around with us because nowhere has it. hand sanitizer is also a must as apparently washing your hands doesn't happen around here. mama z does not speak english so we don't talk much to her... we talk mostly to her 15-year-old daughter (haimen) and the housekeeper (rita), although we're mostly on our own.

i only have a couple of minutes left on the internet so i'll have to do an update on arusha later... it is a pretty big town but we live on the outskirts, which is kind of nice. a lot of safari operators are in arusha so it's become known as somewhat of a tourist town, but because of where we live, it really isn't at all. in fact, when emily and i walked around for 2 hours yesterday (somehow we managed to forget where we live... it was a near crisis but we survived!), we did not see a single mizungo (white person) and it was difficult to find someone that spoke good english. the town basically consists of run-down shacks that function as shops and bars.. i'm trying to find a picture on google but there aren't really any of the area where we live. this is probably the most accurate one i can find: http://www.google.co.tz/imgres?imgurl=http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1356/781408323_d6d071c9a5.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.flickr.com/photos/34514886%40N00/781408323/&usg=___raVmXE04wgV6xvIkmoS_XlSLes=&h=339&w=500&sz=107&hl=sw&start=1&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=QmHpzY0BXYd6KM:&tbnh=88&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3Darusha%26um%3D1%26hl%3Dsw%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26ndsp%3D20%26tbs%3Disch:1

people are pretty nice, although it's difficult to know who to trust... we want to be friendly and get to know everyone but at the same time we don't want to get ourselves in trouble! it's a fine line that we're working on figuring out. there are like two paved roads that the dala dala (public transportation here --- that will be a whole additional blog post, they're hilarious!) run on, but after that they're just dirt with gigantic bumps. i'm honestly amazed every time we make it home in a taxi, the roads are ridiculous. and there are no street names... hence getting extremely lost yesterday. ok well my time is up, feel free to e-mail me! more updates to come soon after i begin teaching!

SAFARI!

alikolb — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 17:34:00 GMT

mambo everyone!! i am back in arusha after an AMAZING safari... it was so so awesome. it began on a bit of a rocky start as emily and i are not quite used to living on "tanzanian time"... our guide showed up an hour and a half late to pick us up so we were a little nervous that this company had taken our money and run. BUT eventually he showed up and everything after that was awesome. we had met these two people from england in the safari office the day before we went and decided to go together (so it was much cheaper!) and they turned out to be awesome. it would have been pretty awkward if it was just me, emily, and our guide... and alex and ollie (our new friends) turned out to be lots of fun. i could talk for hours about safari but i'll try to just give a few highlights and let the pictures do the talking when i get home. i only took 600 pictures... pretty good for me! a few of my favorite times on safari weeeere...

1. just camping in the middle of the serengeti was awesome. i didnt realize we would be so close to the animals!! when we pulled up to our campsite, there were two giraffe like 50 feet away, which we thought was pretty cool. then later that night, emily and i went to the bathroom and freaked out a bit when we saw a big pair of eyes like 20 feet away from us. we went to get omar (our guide) who identified the eyes as a lion's and threw rocks at it while screaming "I WANT TO KILL THE LION!!!". it was kind of scary kind of hilarious. about a half hour later we heard a lot of crunches in the bushes right near us so being a little over-paranoid, we went and got omar. when we turned on our flashlight, we realized that there were two elephants right near us, just munching away! it was quite an experience for the first night... the following night emily and alex were followed by 4 lion and the night after that an elephant almost stepped on our car and there were TONS of zebra maybe 5 feet from our tent. i got some neat pictures and no injuries! :)

2. we literally saw every single animal we wanted to... our guide was awesome. we were some of the few people to see a cheetah, jaguar, rhino etc. my favorite animal was probably zebra and they were basically surrounding us all the time. we saw lion cubs playing with each other, a lion stalking some gazelle, elephants taking a mud bath, a pool with TONS of hippos and crocodiles, and a zebra carcass get attacked by vultures and jackals just after a lion had left it. i think those were all the most exciting moments... honestly just looking at the gorgeous landscape was enough to keep me entertained! unfortunately it takes like 45 minutes to upload ONE photo on this super slow internet so i'll have to wait until i'm home, but i promise it'll be worth the wait!

i guess this safari update has gone on for long enough... i'm sure you won't be able to shut me up if you ask me about it once i get home haha. if you have any specific questions, feel free to e-mail me (alikolb@gmail.com and akolb@wisc.edu -- i never know which one will decide to work) and i'll try to get back to you! miss you all!

WE MADE IT!!

alikolb — Wed, 7 Jul 2010 22:30:00 GMT

i'm quickly writing this update from a cafe in arusha --- don't have much time because we're about to get picked up to go to meet our host family! it's been a loooong three days of traveling but we're doing great. driving 7 hours through kenya was very cool/different/dusty/bumpy. we had a delay in NYC so we were late in to london and didnt get to leave the airport in between our flights, which was a bit of a bummer. however, we lucked out in nairobi by miraculously getting on the early shuttle to arusha... not sure how we made that happen, but the e-mail i printed out from some random guy proved to be key. if we hadnt gotten the shuttle, we wouldve had an additional 7 hrs sitting in another airport! well we gotta run, but we'll try to update soon!

xoxo ali and em