The end is near.

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7/26/09:

Well, if you can believe it, it's somehow the day before my departure from Africa and my arrival in Israel. How it got from June 17th to today, I have no idea...but it seems to have gone by so fast. It's a bit depressing and making matters worse is the fact that everyone has left and I'm sitting here alone and bored. Luckily, Solomon is going to call me later and have me come out to dinner with him and his brother and his brother's girlfriend. I told him last night I was going to be alone tonight and he said "oh no no, you'll come out to dinner with us." He's such a nice guy.

So yesterday day wasn't anything exciting....just packing, laundry-ing, relaxing, hanging out with everyone. Milan gave some of us girls roses with little personal notes, it was very sweet. I bought him a Tusker and set it outside his door...he was leaving at 3:30 this morning, so I left it with a note saying, "One for the road. Stay thirsty my friend, bon voyage." But anyhow, by 7pm we were all dolled up and ready to go to the hotel for our goodbye dinner.

It was at a nice hotel with a big dinning room and it was open bar (WOO!) and really good food. We all ate and drank a ton and had a great time. Even our teacher, ol' S-dizzle showed up. He actually drove Emily, Taina, Molly and I back to the ARC, which was nice and awkward at the same time...haha.

We had big plans for the evening...Solomon was coming out with us to the local bar that plays LIVE, LOCAL REGGAE which I was SO excited for. So he met us at the hotel and some of us headed out with him to the bar (Milan and some people had to finish packing). The place was SO cool...no cheesy American rap blasting, just locales playing amazing live reggae. It was cool because they played a mix of original music and then some Peter Tosh and Bob Marley. We had a blast. We stayed there until about 11 and then Solomon wanted us all to go to Maasai camp, which we hadn't gone to since like the first weekend. So Tom, Emily, Solomon, Thomas (one of the safari / mountain guides) and myself caught a cab and headed to Maasai camp, only Solomon decided we needed to take a detour...he took us to this street vendor that's famous in Arusha for their late-night food, which is basically chips (fries), eggs and chicken. He insisted I get one, because I've never had it (without chicken of course), and I have to admit...IT WAS DELICIOUS!!!!!!! It was just like an omelet of fries and it was so greasy and hot and amazing. Emily and I shared it and we ate the whole thing by the time we got back to the hotel to drop her off. Much to the amusement of Solomon and Thomas, our cab driver was drunk (Solomon: "yeaahh yeahh, our cabbie, he is very drunk, yeaaah yeahh, so funny") but we somehow managed to get to Maasai camp. Upon arrival Tom thought it would be hilarious to put his greasy egg and chips hands on my face and I then drunkenly proceeded to ask Solomon and Thomas how you say f-you in Kiswahili, which caused them to burst into a fit of laughter. They laughed at us drunk Mzungus ("white person") all night, it was hilarious.

At Maasai Camp I got stuck talking to this Dutch guy who had been eyeing me up at Empire, but I pleaded with Solomon via eye contact to rescue me. The dude was nice and all, but I just didn't really feel like chatting, not to mention he bluntly asked me what happened to my head...kind of rude. Anyhow, we all headed to the dance floor and for once I danced a little bit (rare for me as most of you know). I danced with Solomon and Thomas. But it was nice because I actually danced, not that nasty like club-dancing, groping business and I knew both of the guys. Much better than some random creeper trying to dance with you. We finally headed out around 2:30 and caught another cab home. Solomon and Tom and Thomas paid for like all the girls all night...food, drinks, cabs, etc. and it was really nice yet somehow I still managed to spend like 8,000TZS..?? Oh well, TIA!

We got back and a few of us just hungout with Milan until his cab came and by 4am I stumbled to my room for some much needed sleep.

Emily and I slept in until about 12:30 (she's started the process of getting herself back on California time), had a little lunch, then headed to Via Via for a final cup of coffee. The afternoon was spent with packing and cleaning up the room and what not. I switched into the room across the hall so I could at least be able to take a shower, but it still doesn't have TV so I'll be quite bored tonight when I get home from dinner, but this room has a huge queen sized bed, which is a nice upgrade.

Everyone loaded their stuff onto the bus and around 4:30 I had to say my goodbyes to everyone. It was really sad...I made some great friends on this trip but we're all so spread out, it's hard to know if we'll ever see each other again and I want to make sure I keep in touch with a lot of people, especially my beloved roomie Emily. I can safely say I can see myself arranging a trip to San Diego in the future to visit her 😊.

I'll save my reflections on my time here for tomorrow when I'm sitting around in the airport. For now, I'm going to read until Solomon texts me with dinner plans. I hope it's soon, I'm getting very hungry...

Farewell for now all.
<3<3<3

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Comments

[Jimmy McGuire]

Hi
Hi kenz, I just wanted to say hello and let you know I was thinking about you. What you've done is truly amazing and I'm excited for you to have some fun finally with your friend in Israel. I heard about your Terrible Towel pic and am trying to locate it, that's great!... Myron would be proud of you! Be safe, Love McGoo.