Karibu! First day in Tanzania

This is my first post from TZ. After getting in last night around 8:30pm in Kilimanjaro I took my first breath of African air, filled out the proper paperwork, and met the rest of the group to drive about an hour to get to Arusha. It was pitch black outside for the entire drive so I almost didn't believe I was in Africa. When I woke up the next morning (after a pretty lousy, post almost 24 hours of travel sleep) I started believing that I was in Tanzania.

Today was SO BUSY with orientation. Besides the regular introductory meetings and lectures, we had our first Swahili lesson, took a walking tour of Arusha, and had a discussion about safety with the assistant secretary of security from East African Communities. The city of Arusha reminds me a lot of Leh, Ladakh in India where I was a couple of summers ago. It has a similar look and feel. There are three east African students joining us in our program, two from Uganda and one from Tanzania so I'm excited to get to know them.

Surprisingly its chilly here... I wore jeans and a pullover fleece all day. They say it'll get a lot warmer in the next couple weeks.

Outside the window right now there seems to be a drum and singing circle.

On the agenda for tomorrow: continuing orientation until 2pm, going to the ATM, and getting more credit for my cell phone.