Arriving to Life in the Slow Lane

I can say with certainty that running up the escalator in your stocking feet is not something that should be on anyone's to-do list. I know this because that's exactly what I ended up doing on Saturday morning. I had such a short layover in Seattle that I got it into my head I must being going through US Customs before boarding in Victoria, like some of my previous trips.

I was wrong.

Between construction at the airport and what felt like eleventy billion flights arriving within 30 minutes of each other, my short connection time got even shorter. Which meant I spent my time in line guilting the people in front of me for security into letting me cut before running up two flights of escalators and across a SEA-TAC terminal in the aforementioned stocking feet.

Those little ridges on the escalator HURT!

On the upside, I learned that US Customs now has an app called "Mobile Passport" which means I pretty much skipped 90% of the customs queue. Highly recommend getting it if you're flying to the States, have a smart phone, and are eligible for it (US citizens, US permanent resident, or Canadian citizen).

Sunrise over the North Sea

I was pleasantly surprised when I arrived at Kilimanjaro to find a renovated immigration area. Part of the renovation included ropes to help create lines of people instead of the traditional clusterf*** they had employed for so many decades. Of course, the ropes only went back far enough for about 20 people so getting to the nicely roped off areas was still a free-for-all.

Despite these improvements, I still failed to get out in under an hour. At the rate they are improving the airport, I expect to get through customs in less than 30 mins by 2035.

On the upside, I walked out to find both Paulo and Anande waiting for me. It was a nice treat to catch up with Anande as Paulo drove. Once we turned off the paved road, the rest of the drive was like this.

I arrived to find that Frida had cooked me chipsi mayai (French fry omelette) for a pre-bed snack, and I devoured it before falling asleep for 10 wonderful, uninterrupted hours.

I spent a restful Monday recovering from jetlag by reading my Le Carré novel on the patio while Frida cooked and cleaned. She also decided to lead a one woman assault with a can of "Off!" against two flies that left the place stinking of the stuff for an hour. She was very proud when they final dropped dead, although I hadn't the heart to tel her that I think it's because she drowned them and not from the magic properties of the bug spray.

My view for much of Monday

I was visited by Big Mama and Wee Jimmy, two wild dogs that call our compound home during the day. Big Mama has been a fixture on the campus for a few years. She's part of a pack of wild dogs that roam the area, but our compound is her space and she chases off any other dogs who dare enter. Or she did until Wee Jimmy showed up shortly before my last visit. He was a very young puppy of questionable intelligence, and I think she tolerated him more because he was just too stupid to realise she was trying to chase him away.

In the two years since, Big Mama appears to have mellow and is friendlier. Where she would once move the minute you got within 10 meters of her, she happily trotted to the patio to give me a quick sniff before heading on her way. Wee Jimmy, on the other hand, tried to say hello and ended up running into the patio wall. Like I said, not the smartest dog in the village.

I headed to the library early Tuesday morning for my first day there. I'll talk more about that in a later post, but I was pleasantly surprised when one of the patrons smiled at me and said "I remember you." It was Amret who I used as my guinea pig for RACHEL-Pi training!

After a full day of work at the library and a quick meeting with Anande to discuss our focus for the grant writing, I ended today how I imagine I'm going to be ending a lot of my days: siting on the patio, eating my fresh fruit dessert, drinking tea, and watching the sunset on Mt. Meru.

Anticipate seeing a lot of these sunset pictures.