The first sights of Africa

Finally to Africa!

My dear family and friends, this is Part One of the story in Africa. How it begins is very soft, very simple—which is to say, it begins with sleep deprivation...

I arrived at the Minneapolis airport three hours before my flight on Wednesday morning, escorted by two lovely women who were my roommates during my senior year of college. After checking in and checking my suitcase, we went downstairs to the Starbucks at the baggage claim and got in one last weekly update. As the time neared to go through security, we found a quiet corner of the airport to sit down and...well, you know girls...cry. And I mean cry. Snot and tears everywhere. You know how you sometimes wonder if this will be the trip where you just happen to fall in love on your 10-hour flight? Well trust me, no man finds love at first sight of teary eyes and red, blotchy face.

No, today was definitely not the day. I cried all the way through security, all the way through the terminal, even in the bathroom. None of these were bad tears, mind you. After all, this was Africa. That thought was enough to help the waterworks subside by the time I boarded the plane but then I read some farewell letters from friends and the dam broke loose again, leaving absolutely no question about my romantic fate. Half an hour before we were supposed to land in Toronto, the pilot told us that we were going to divert to Detroit. I have to laugh when I think that, before I was even on foreign soil, my plans had already changed.

I would never make it to Toronto that day. A real shame, considering it was going to be my first time to Canada. I was rather hoping to have a ‘Cool Runnings’ moment where I stepped out of the ‘sortie’ and watched my breath freeze in the air and felt the freezing wind blow my knickers off. Instead, I found myself running through the Detroit airport trying to get my flights rerouted so I could make it to Amsterdam overnight. Thirty minutes after a sprint that could have gotten me into the Olympics I found myself boarding the Titanic for the Netherlands. Excitement mounted as I landed in Amsterdam and reboarded for Kilimanjaro.

The Kilimanjaro airport was just a long runway with one building outside. Instead of gates there were stair-ladders wheeled up to the jet's doors, where we disembarked. As soon as I stepped outside an enormous wind nearly lifted me off the plank. Had I not been wearing a 30 lb backpack I’m sure I would have blown right off. The masses hurled themselves into the two-room airport, where we all cuddled in line to get visas or get through the line. Talk about sweat. The room was a royal meltdown, balanced out only by three small fans attached to the ceiling at various places. About five minutes of standing in line I seriously considered going to ask the pilot to turn the plane a little to the south so we could aim one of the engine turbines right into the visa office. Instead, I counted my blessings and remembered to be patient, and forty minutes later I finally walked into Tanzania legal and lighter in the pocketbook. And miracle of miracles, my suitcase made it, too.

Just as that seemed to comfort me, I realized it was nearing midnight in a remote airport in Africa, and I was a lone White girl with nothing in the pipeline but a few emails from people I had never met assuring me I would be picked up at the airport an hour earlier. The hour I had spent getting my visa.

Hello, cardiac arrest. At this moment my parents worries seemed...uh...valid.

Thankfully, just past the baggage claim there was a woman was holding the YWAM Kili sign, and I found myself being welcomed and helped with my bags in no time. We loaded all the bags into a white, flat-nosed bus and headed back to the base, cruising up to 80 kilometers per hour until we came across white-striped speed bumps (more like speed islands they are so wide!). Once we passed all the islands we picked up speed again and were at the driveway to the base in no time. Along the way, they pointed out the shadow of Mt. Kilimanjaro in the dark. Then suddenly our driver turned off the main road into what liked like an overgrown field, where we began a roller-coaster ride of dodging rocks and potholes and staying on the vague tire tracks running through the field. Some kids had placed rocks in front of the base’s driveway, sending the staff into a wild laughter that they had made a gate while they were gone and that moving the rocks was how they ‘opened the gate.’

Thanks to about 36 hours of traveling and a slight overdose in Nyquil, my first blogging saga of arriving in Africa ends here. Within minutes of arriving at the base I lost consciousness underneath a big, white mosquito net and a tin roof. But everyone knows that the traveling part is really just the incubator, so stay posted for more stories and more developments as I spend the next several months of my life here in Africa…