eyes. mess. woooooooo.

JAMBO!

I thought I would create this blog and post here, instead of sending emails. That way I don't leave anyone out (feel free to share with anyone...) and I think it might be easier for me to access this page rather than opening my email and letting it load. And I am pretty sure I will have at least weekly access to internet... So first and foremost, I have to say thanks to Todo for letting me steal the words from their song for my title : ) Since it will be the end of the rainy season when I arrive, I feel it is only fitting.

So I am getting ready to go and have had a pretty insane past couple days. I woke up Saturday morning with a pretty obvious eye infection. I went to the doctor, but needless to say that started the inevitable string of anxiousness, nervousness, and just general freaking out. I have been on antibiotics and am not too sure that its getting all that much better, plus it has now spread to the other eye. AWESOME. I also tend to get homesick before I leave, and not at all once I am gone... a blessing maybe as it allows me to really enjoy where I am.... but it meant that mom and dad going out of town this weekend just wasn't so fun. So it has just been a whirlwind of a weekend and getting ready. OH and I've also just gotten 10 inches cut off my hair to donate to locks of love, and to make my hair insanely more manageable for my bucket showers!

BUT my floor is currently covered with long linen skirts, 4 cans of bug spray, a mosquito net, and water purification tablets. I am about 95% ready to go, with a quick stop at the grocery store ahead of me. I will also be getting new glasses Tuesday. I haven't had new glasses since 2003 (!!) but since I am having to wear them and will have to travel in them due to the disaster which is my eye I have to get an up-to-date prescription, since not only my frames but my lenses are also from 2003! Just a lot to do! Glad I started early!!

So Wednesday evening I will fly to Toronto then on to London, arriving thursday morning. Thursday afternoon I leave for Kenya, arriving Friday morning. Two back to back red eyes might kill me! I will arrive in Arusha, Tanzania Friday morning around 8.50. You will all be sleeping, or for some of you night owls, just going to bed. My program will meet me at the airport and then deliver me to meet my high school friend Emma Jones who is a peace corp volunteer in a town about 4 hours from Arusha. Knowing that I will arrive to a familiar face is really comforting. Emma will have a cell phone for me (she is awesome!) and will get me introduced to Tanzania before my orientation starts on Monday June 2nd.

As for the program, I am not sure if I will be in Arusha or in Moshi at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro. I do not know anything about my host family or the orphanage I will be working in. Just that it will happen, and that I've requested not to have electricity! (and am still seriously considering going without running water...) There are a few other volunteers coming in at the same time as me, that I gather from emails..., so it will be good to have others in my shoes. I am sure my first post will let you know more about what I am doing specifically, etc.

So I hope you enjoy reading this and I hope I might be able to post some pictures (I just got a brilliant new camera for an early birthday presi with 8megapixles and 5x zoom so I can be sure to capture the safari shots!) Many of you have listened to me talk about sub-Saharan Africa for months or even years... of my dreams to go, of the situation in Uganda, and anything else you could stand to listen to. I am so excited to share this experience with you!

Soon, I will let you know how it feels to stand in a part of the world I have dreamed about for years!

Tutaonana (see you...)
Libby