THIS TIME FOR AFRICA! #1

I went to Africa! It's still kinda surreal to say that, but it's true =). I'm breaking it down into some smaller chunks for reading (and writing) purposes- so here's #1 of I don't know how many =). First, let me say that because of Hurricane Irene hitting Washington DC, we spent a lot of extra time in airports. We landed in DC just fine, but couldn't take back off. The airport did give us a free meal and the 2 St George girls I went with and I got to meet up with 3 other people in the SHe group- Amman, Danielle from Alaska (there ending up being 2 Danielle's) and Juanita. (I guess I should say I went with the Singular Humanitarian Group or SHe. It's an LDS single's group that does humanitarian work and then we worked together over there with CHOICE humanitarian). We just kinda sat around , talked and slept. We knew we would miss our connections in Africa and rearranged some different flights.

Girls from St. George who were on the trip

My "home" for over 24 hours of this trip

We landed in Ethiopia where we had a 12ish hour layover. The airline provider hooked us up with a hotel (even though we weren't staying 'over night'), which was nice so we could actually lie down in a real bed (we'd had a 12 our FLIGHT from DC to Addis Ababa at this point) and shower. We decided to walk around the city. (Let me just comment that it smells funny there...I can't fully identify it...a mix of body odor, trash, decomposition and.... like..a sweet smell?)

A painting in the hotel

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Addis 

thanks danielle for letting me borrow a jacket =0

We walked through their market and about a block away saw a sign that read, "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day  Saints" with an arrow pointing down a "street". We found the church, that was holding a YSA FHE and also doing mission transfers. It was by far the nicest building (and separate appendage buildings for the mission office etc) and the nicest grounds in the area. Before we could even see the chapel, we knew we were there just by seeing an maintained gate! It was exciting to meet some of the missionaries and the mission president, as well as listen to them learn "Come Follow Me" in English. I love that The Church is the same no matter where you go- even in Ethiopia!

A painting in the Chapel in Ethiopia- love it!

We then went back to the hotel, ate and got back on a shuttle to take us to the airport. At this point, we'd been traveling for 30 something hours with mini "naps" along the way. I was kinda getting a little hyper. I started singing "Waka waka hey hey!", which is part of a Shakira song she sang from the World Cup in 2010 (entitled- This time for Africa/ Waka Waka). Well, a gentleman in front of me started laughing and said, "Waka Waka already?!" I said, "Oh! I'm sorry. I don't know what that actually means. I shouldn't be singing it here if I don't." He smiled and said, "No no! It's good- it means Happy Happy (in Zulu not Kiswahili mind you). Hakuna Matata (which IS kiswahili) that is a good thing!" One of my travel mates said, "I LOVE that I just heard Hakuna Matata and NOT in a cartoon!" We all laughed and felt like we were off to a great start in Africa.

Karibu (Welcome)  to Kenya

baggage claim drama-
Amman was just kinda out of it

Hard to see but these are the baggage
workers..that's right..they are asleep!

We took another flight to Nairobi and sadly found we had no luggage. None of the 6 of us had our bags ...so after filling out a lot of paper work, finding a taxi (aka Nissan van that was probably made in the 1970's) we arrived at our hotel (after our driver asked directions haah). Side note- there were zebras eating on the roundabout right outside the airport entrance- welcome to KENYA! We had to meet our group at 6AM (it was 3AM local time at this point..I have no idea what time my body thought it was) to leave for Safari, so we didn't get much sleep, but I did get to experience mosquito netting for the first time (and for the next 13 days-ish after). The 6 of us met up with 19 other SHe people to do a 4 day long safari..and that's in post #2!

mesquito net #1