Well - I made it! After 30 hours of travel, 4 take-offs, 4 landings, and 7 time zones, I finally made it to Tanzania.

Everything went perfectly with my flights, I couldn't have asked for anything more.

I had the exciting experience of sitting beside a big Kenyan momma from Zurich to Kenya - this meant she constantly held my arm, slept on me, talked to me in Swahili and broken English, and woke me up while I was sleeping to tell me that she doesn't like flying. It was an abrupt welcome back to East African culture that would have hit me sooner or later, but I would have preferred it happened outside of an aircraft.

Jane's house is quite lovely. Her son lives on the property in a separate house, and we have 2 giant turkeys roaming around! It is right on the Indian ocean, which is a beautiful sight except for the tremendous amount of trash that sits on its shores, and the dirty rivers that flow into it. I almost cringed when I saw Tanzanians swimming in it today. Sitting in my room now - I can hear the waves on the shore, a million birds, and some African live music from a beach bar down the shore.

There is only the Volunteer Coordinator and myself living in Jane's house at the moment - so we each have our own rooms. My room is really large - with a twin bed and a King bed, and a dressing room with a tub and sink, and a separate room for the toilet.

I also have a walk-out door to the balcony - which looks out over a bunch of tropical trees to the ocean. It was nice to sit out there and have a beer this evening.

To even out all of these great things, I have been having problems with money - I called Visa before I left Canada to inform them that I'd be coming to Africa. But today when I went to withdraw cash, I wasn't able to. It turns out that when I left - Visa noticed that somebody charged about 5 big purchases at gas stations around Sudbury to my Visa, and they thought it looked suspicous and suspended my card. Sure enough - my visa information was stolen, and so my card has now been terminated, and I have no way of getting money out - but this is slowly being resolved as I have some money with me, and my parents will be mailing me a new card (although mail can take over a month to arrive here).

Today was a rather lazy day, as I am trying to get over my jet lag and used to the heat an hummidity. We went to a bunch of ATMs (unsuccessfully), and to a shopping complex near by. It's nice that people seem more used to white people here than in Arusha and don't crowd around us - although we certainly do get greeted by everyone.

Tomorrow morning, we start Swahili lessons from 8am-noon.

I haven't taken any photos yet, and I pay for the internet by upload/download quantities so I'll likely only upload the bests until I am at an internet cafe or something and pay by the hour. I will post a few of my room.

Love to all!