I am safely in Kenya!!

I arrived in Nairobi (the capital) Friday night around 8:30 pm local time. (It is 7 hours ahead of the USA). After over 24 hours of constant traveling I was exhausted.

Some notes on my flights: The first flight was 7 hours from Dulles to Paris. I flew on an Airbus, which was HUGE. I didn’t sleep since it was an afternoon flight, but by the time I got to Paris it was 6 am local time and I definitely wasn’t happy to start my day all over again.

My flight to Nairobi was interesting to say the least. I flew on Kenya Airlines (The Pride of Africa!) and was so impressed by the service. The seats were blue or red with multicolored designs and food and drinks were free. The plane was pretty empty but I ended up sitting right next to a little old man who spoke French and no English. However, I wasn’t in his company for too long because before the plane even took off a man a few rows ahead of me walked over and asked me if I wanted to come sit with him.

Normally I would not hangout with a complete stranger, but hey it was an 8 hour plane ride and at least he spoke English. Within 5 minutes of sitting with him he ordered us both Tusker, an original Kenyan beer. I tried (and failed) to keep a straight face as the flight attendant promptly handed us each TWO cans of FREE beer. I immediately decided that I made the right choice to sit with him. (Who needs sleep anyways?!) Then we chatted about anything from religion to politics to race. It was really nice talking to him, he was really intelligent and had great insights. Before I knew it, we had been talking for 4 hours straight! He ordered us another round of two beers each, but I begged off because I was exhausted and frankly drinking two beers over the course of 4 hours had been a struggle. (Especially since Kenyans prefer their beer warm…yummm). Since the plane was empty I was able to get my own row of seats and got in a solid two hours before my new friend woke me up because we were “close” to our destination. Apparently our definitions of “close” are extremely different because we were still 2 hours away. Luckily for me, I got to spend those 2 hours listening to a very well thought out argument for why I should meet up with this guy in Kenya AND potentially start up a long distance relationship. Lets just say that we decided to stay friends……hahaha.

Landing in Kenya was a TOTALLY different experience then my time in Sierra Leone. The airport in Kenya is very clean and modern. (Everyone got their fingerprints scanned by a machine before entering the country). It was actually a pretty relaxing process while navigating the airport in Sierra Leone can be overwhelming and quite frankly unpleasant. Also, I was extremely impressed by Nairobi. It is definitely an African city, but there are so many impressive buildings. I was shocked to see some skyscrapers and huge hotels. The parliament buildings and government offices wouldn’t look out of place in DC. Overall, the city was busy with people dressed up and getting ready to go out while Freetown looks like a ghost town after dark. The roads are nicely paved and people actually use the sidewalk and don’t take up the whole street (imagine that!).

I have been so thrown off by traveling and have been awake since 4 am. Its almost 9 and I will be leaving soon to FINALLY get to Nakuru, where I will be spreading the next three months. I am so excited to see the country and meet my host mom :)