Departures and Arrivals...

Greetings to all of Project Kesho's supporters! We have had an eventful and busy four days working our way from different places in the USA all the way to Iringa, Tanzania. Our group departed from three different cities to meet in JFK airport on Sunday afternoon. Three of us (Amie, Cathi and Ian) left Seattle on an early morning flight, clocking in our first six hours of plane travel. Matt left from South Carolina to fly out of Charlotte, NC to JFK the same morning and Lynn made her way to JFK by car. To provide some context, our group was responsible for transporting 15 luggage items to Tanzania, a formidable task in itself!! We managed to get everything checked into the airlines and waited for our flight from JFK to London's Heathrow airport. The flight was of course delayed, so we spent quite a bit of time waiting around in the airport. Matt wins the prize for the longest wait, having arrived at the JFK arport from Charlotte about three in the afternoon and not boarding the next plane until 8:30-9pm that night! We arrived in London and managed to take some time to stretch our legs in a stroll around between flights. It was Seattle weather in London, so at least three of us were right at home. We shard our first meal together and said "Cheers" to the work to come. Luckily, our plane from London left close to "on time" and we managed to make it to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania as scheduled. The plane landed at 7:30 am in Tanzania on Tuesday--which to us seemed like one long Sunday... Upon arrival we were able to secure our visa easily and then headed to baggage claim. In keeping with the tradition of my (Cathi) Africa travel, my bag of course did not arrive, nor did Lynn's. But in all 13 out of 15 bags is pretty succesful. We will maybe be getting our two bags sometime in the next week. This will explain why we seem to be wearing the same outfits in every picture! (In reality though, everyone else probably only has one more outfit than we do anyway...) We spent an overnight in Dar to take some tie for meeting with officials in the city and to wait for our Land Cruiser ride to Iringa. During our stay in Dar, our group shared a meal at ADDIS IN DAR, a fantastic Ethiopian restaurant. The restaurant graciously served us our meal at no cost as friends of Project Kesho. The next morning we loaded up our Cruiser to head out for Iringa. The drive from Dar to Iringa was on Wednesday, taking ten hours. We arrived in time to eat a dinner in the darknes of the Africa sky and head to bed. My next post will share what our first day in Iringa was like... Please share our blog with others...we would love to hear from you too. baadaye (later...) ~Cathi