Tuesday, August 12, 2008

First impressions

Stereotypes
I didn't think I had any, but spending a day in a culturally diverse place has proven me wrong.

- Africa is hot
last night when we arrived in Kili airport, it was only 12-13 degrees.
- malaria is about
no mosquitos to note as of yet, possibly because of the dry season, possibly because of the cool climate
- tropical fruit is juicy and sweet
they are sour

First time experiences

-met friendly people from the UK and Egypt at the airport lounge in nairobi while waiting 12 hours for a 40 minute connecting flight that would have taken 4 hour by bus
- wearing a fleece in 20 degree weather to blend in with the locals
- Swahili phrases like 'jambo' [hello], 'asantei' [Thank you], 'mambo' [how are you]
- a ride in a car on a unlit one lane highway with cyclists and pedestrians just walking on the shoulder and cars passing each other on the opposite lanes.
- being woken up by roosters at 6am
- friendly kids saying hello, chasing after us practising their "how are you's" and "fine thank you"

3 comments:

Irene said...

yay you guys have arrived safe and sound! :D whaa.... tropical fruit is not sweet and juicy??? so have you guys started with the teaching? or will that be a little while later?

Unknown said...

Congratulations on a major step of getting there! Looking forward to reading more of your observations.

Dora and Tim said...

After two weeks, we saw our first orange orange. For some reason, most of them are green or yellow here. They taste sweet, despite their colour.

We begin teaching in September.