africa

jambo family and friends!

well it took me three days (with zero sleep) to get here but i made it! unfortunately it was cloudy when we flew over north africa so i didn't get to see any landscape, but now i am in mombasa with the ocean and it's beautiful! the weather is actually pretty nice, sunny but not too hot, a little humid, but usually a little breezy too.it's the middle of ramadan right now so there are a lot more women out on the streets than normally, according to our director, athman, who is awesome. he's an african studies expert (a fulbright scholar from yale) and very sweet. our assistant director is named ali and is also SO sweet and adorable. we are currently living in the rooms above our program office, which is convenient for now, but we will only be here through friday, i think. none of us really know what is going on, africans are very relaxed, and when we asked our directs about plans and schedules they just say oh don't worry we'll get to that lol

so far all the food i've had is delicious, so great news for me! (great success!) lots of rice and meat and seafood, perfect. the exchange rate is about 10 kenyan shillings to one us cent, so everything is super cheap! which i am soooo happy about haha

we leave on friday for a rural homestay north of mombasa. the village is higher in elevation so i actually need to go buy some warm clothes (which our packing list failed to mention)

R