Africa Pt. 1: Food

After a few days back home, I have finally had a chance to start going through all my photos from Africa. This is the first installment of what will be many posts focused on different themes that emerged among the photos I took while there. To recap, Dave and I went on a two week trip to Kenya and Tanzania to visit his sister, Gina, who works in Nairobi interviewing refugees for US visas. We flew into Nairobi, then took a bus to Moshi, Tanzania, where we met up with Gina's boyfriend Luka and went on safari to Lake Manyara and Ngorongoro Crater. Luka runs an amazing outreach program in Moshi, Tanzania called the Salama Center which provides education and other services for orphans and their extended families. You can read more about the work they do at the Orphans International Interns blog. Though this kind of work certainly has it's ups and downs, it was incredibly inspiring to see how much of a positive impact they are having on the lives of these children. We spent two days at the Salama Center, where we mostly played games with the kids. After Moshi, we went to Mombasa, Kenya to relax at the beach and walk around the historic Old Town, then back to Nairobi for our last two days.

Three Day Safari, Back in Moshi

The past week and a half have been unforgettable to say the least, between witnessing the awe of Ngorongoro Crater to sharing a family meal with new friends at their home in Moshi. Tomorrow, Dave, Gina and I are off to Mombasa for a few days on the beach before heading back to Nairobi, then back to Boston via Amsterdam. Since the internet here crawls at the pace of a circa-1998 dialup connection, I will be forgoing any further posts until I get back on September 20. I have taken nearly a thousand photos and will likely take that many more before the trip is over, and I'm very excited to get home and see them all on a big screen and post them to the blog.

Day in Nairobi

Today, after sleeping off some of our jetlag and waking up at 10:30am, we headed for the foreign exchange bureau where we became thousandaires in Kenya shillings, then to get lunch at a coffee and sandwich spot in the Sarit Center mall. After lingering for a while there, we perused the aisles of a nearby supermarket, one of my favorite things to do in a foreign country. Then we headed for downtown in a taxi to buy our bus tickets for our trip to Moshi, Tanzania (we leave tomorrow morning). Along the way we got to see a lot of the city which is intensely crowded with people and vehicles. Most locals get around in buses called matatus, and some of them are brightly painted by the owners as a form of street art. We had several close encounters with these while we were in the taxi. After getting our bus tickets, we headed for the Kenyatta Conference Center, the 2nd tallest building in Nairobi, where we received an unexpected and very insightful tour from a guide who gave us a brief but informative overview of Nairobi's history. Photos were taken, then we got back down to street level and walked around Uhuru park, checking out some monuments and taking a little break from walking around. We decided it was time to head back to Gina's apartment and found a taxi. For a while we ended up behind what may be the stinkiest garbage truck I have ever smelled, and our driver wisely pulled a U-turn and took us another way. The drive took us about an hour though we weren't going very far. Traffic in Nairobi is infamous and would put anything in New York or LA to shame. Emission control on vehicles also seems to be unheard of. Overall impressions of Nairobi: Crowded, smelly, vibrant, exciting, pulsing, noisy. Tonight we eat at Carnivore, a famous Nairobi restaurant. Tomorrow we are off to Moshi, Tanzania.

Two Weeks in Africa

As some of you may already know, I am leaving today for a two week trip to Africa, specifically Kenya and Tanzania. Dave and I are going to visit his sister, Gina, who lives and works in Nairobi, and from there we are going to Tanzania to visit her boyfriend, Luka, go on safari at Ngorongoro Crater and spend some time exploring the area. This may involve climbing at least part of Mt. Kilimanjaro, exploring the town of Moshi, and volunteering at an orphanage run by Luka. Since I have never been to this part of the world, I have no idea what to expect and am filled with anticipation. We are leaving at 7 o'clock tonight and I can already feel the butterflies in my stomach. We are flying from Boston to Amsterdam and then on to Nairobi. Our suitcases are packed (mostly), our vaccinations administered, our fridge cleaned out and we are ready to go.

For a camera I am bringing my trusty Nikon D70 DLSR, which has seen me through several other oversees trips and, while a dinosaur by digital standards, is still very durable. I was considering buying a cheap point-and-shoot digital for the trip, but realized I would probably be unsatisfied with the pictures from anything less than a DLSR. Hopefully I'll be able to access a computer at some point to post pictures during the trip. I'm sure we'll have access to the internet, I'm just not sure how often or how long we'll have to use it, so do check here often as I will be posting updates as frequently as possible.
Off we go!