Finally Arrived

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Well, I'm finally in Kenya. It doesn't feel like I'm actually there, but I'm sure it won't feel real until I get to my placement in Wasini and start working. Getting here was very long.

I left Liam and my family around 5pm on Wednesday, and that was quite hard. I was a bit of an emotional basketcase, but I tried to hold it in. My flight to Amserdam was uneventful, other then the cabin crew asking for a doctor at one point. Beause I can't seem to ever sleep on airplanes I only slept about 1 hour before arriving in Amsterdam at 10:45am Thursday their time.

After some confusion about how I would get one I bought a train ticket into the city center, because I had 9 hours and 35 minutes before my Nirobi flight. It only took 20 minutes to get to town, and I wandered for several hours. I was paying close attention to where I was going so that I could walk back to the station the same way. I managed to find out that the Anne Frank House was near where I was, so I walked and after around 20 minutes in line I got in. It was very interesting to walk through, but kind of odd at the same time. It is strange to think that 8 people lived in that tiny space for 2 years, with no one knowing that they were there. After that I walked back, but not before eating the baked goods that Kayla had given me before I left. It was a chocolate cheesecake brownie, and it had been sitting on top of a chocolate chip cookie. Because of the heat the two had fused together, so it was an amazing combination. Yum!!!

Once back at the airport I called Liam and talked for a while, then then had a hot chocolate to keep awake (it was getting really hard to at that point) and went to my terminal to read my GVI manual. (GVI is the company that I'm volunteering with) I hadn't been reading more then a minute when the girl next to me asks if I was doing something with GVI in Kenya, as she was as well. We weren't on the same placement, but it was nice to have someone to walk through the airport with, because we were taking the same shuttle to the hotel. We also met another girl when we borded the plane. That second flight was even more uneventful. I slept around 45 minutes right as we took off, and completely missed the safety video.

We got off in Nirobi just as the sun was rising, and it was hard to believe that I was actually in Kenya. We went through customs, and after getting to the domestic terminal I descovered that my bags, which I thought had been checked all the way through to Mombasa, actually weren't. One of the GVI girls I'd been with had seen her's and grabbed it, so I went back through and got mine to re-check it.

The Mombasa flight was only about an hour, with a 15 minutes cat nap in the beginning. When we landed we had someone waiting for us, and we took some time to buy and figure out Kenyan SIM cards so that I can talk to people back home without too much difficulty.

The ride through Mombasa to get to our hotel was a little strange. I was very over tired and overwhelmed by this point, so I was in a bit of a fog. We checked in, and I talked to Liam for a bit then showered and napped, which was amazing. I'm still tired at this point, but I'm going to try to stay up until later so that I will sleep all night. Right now dinner is served in a few hours, and I'm going to try to find some of the other volunteers. I think I'm getting excited. I'm still overwhelmed and muddled at this point so it's hard to tell, but I'm sure once that wears off and I get to Wasini Island it will sink in.

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Comments

[Liam]

Sounds like quite the trip to get there! That was good luck running into the other volunteers with GVI at the airport (and thus figuring out that your bags weren't getting checked through). Sounds like it's GVI start-of-semester season in Kenya right now no matter where people are going to be based. I hope a good night's sleep helps with the overwhelmedness (is that a word?) and that the bus ride tomorrow isn't too bad! Say hi to Africa for me! <3