Arrival

After finishing the blog yesterday, I did a little more exploration of the airport. I checked in on the women's shower (great idea if I had thought to bring a towel), the museum and some of the shops. I got some chocolates to greet some of my hosts and I managed not to get any for myself. At the prices they were going for that wasn't much of a stretch.

I got in the waiting line to get in the waiting line to get in the waiting line. (For real.) You wait in some chairs to be let on a line to go through security to wait in more chairs to be let on the flight. I tried to get a better seat, but they only had center seats available.

The seats were really tight. Again my neighbors wanted nothing to do with me. I apologized for encroaching on their space and they curtly said, "It's okay," but I'm not convinced they really felt it was okay. So we sat for 9 hours in silence. If I said that I slept for about 30 minutes total the whole trip I think I would be overestimating how much I slept.

When we first got on I remembered thinking that I was glad that I kept my scarf in carry-on as it was a little chilly on the plane. That lasted about 5 minutes. Once we were in the air I thought that I would be fine without a scarf. Five minutes after that I was thinking it was getting a bit warm. Within 30 minutes I was looking for the controls for the air vent. Finding none I looked at my neighbors to see if they were uncomfortable. They clearly were, but I couldn't tell if that was from crowding or heat.

About 6 hours into the trip I concluded that I had not starting having hot flashes and tried to walk around when I could to get more comfortable. I drank every time they offered to me and felt as though I could have gone for 4 times more.

By the time we reached Kilimanjaro for our brief stop I was just at about the safe temperature to eat poultry. The fellow on my right got off without a word and the woman to my left stayed on. I'm sure we both prayed that we'd get the row to ourselves, but no such luck. A fellow traveling back to Amsterdam sat down next to me. At least he was friendly and the flight was only an hour. Apparently after they stopped at Dar Es Salaam, the plane was going to turn right around and go back to Amsterdam.

So what I hadn't told you before is that I had packed 30 cell phones that I needed in order to teach my class. Most everyone I spoke to told me that either the phones would be stolen or Customs would stop me and prevent me from bringing the phones in. So letters were written explaining that they were for a project; someone from USAID wrote a letter of introduction for me; I had an invoice to show the phones were purchased. Of course, none of that happened. I picked up the bag, walked through the "Nothing to declare" lane and I saw my Abt pal Joel waving to me.

It's not too hot here, but it is, like, Baltimore humid. We hopped in his 4x4 and landed in his flat. In all the research I had done about the country I never noticed that they drive on the wrong side of the road. I worked very hard not to correct Joel's driving.

Once we got in I couldn't think about anything but sleep. I nearly fell into bed and slept for about 11 hours.

As I said today was all work. Paul came at 11 and the three of us worked until around 8:30. Joel gave us some amazing food made by his housekeeper. A chicken and potato soup and a cooked greens dish for breakfast/lunch and a biryani for dinner. A lot of Tanzanian food was influenced by the Indians so biryani is familiar to me. It was fantastic.

Ok, it's 11:30, it's been a long day. I don't know when I'll be able to write again, but hopefully it will be soon.