Arrived

Day 1 November 9, 2013

Sixteen hours in the air and 22 hours of travel and we finally arrived in Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. The trace smoky aroma of wood burning and the warm humid breezes were our welcome as we stepped off the plane onto the tarmac. I watched Jill’s face and I could tell she shared my feelings of excitement, and that it was all a little surreal.

By the time we cleared Immigration (after a meeting with officials in their office regarding our volunteer CTA stamp  that we needed – but couldn’t get – and drove the forty minutes to our CCS home base, we were all travel weary. We had a warm welcome from Sarah, our Program Director and a brief orientation – reminder to not brush your teeth with the tap water – and then we were shown to our rooms. T

he home base is a large white adobe-like building with lush gardens. Our room has two bunk beds and a single but with there only being three of us sharing, we have the upper bunks for storage. They didn’t have Jill and I in the same room initially but we agreed we wanted to be together and one of our trip mates was kind enough to offer to switch. So day one – first night, we popped our malaria meds, brushed our teeth, climbed under our mosquito nets and fell into a ragged sleep.

Lyn

Bunk beds - just like camp!

Closet space

Our beautiful home base

The outdoor kitchen where Primo worked his magic