Author Archives: Jessica

Bittersweet goodbye

Posted on by under Africa, Tanzania

Today I had to say my first goodbye, to Alex. It was, of course extremely difficult. I am still very excited for Tanzania, and Alex has been a big part of why I am able to do this trip, his encouragement has helped give me the strength I’ve needed to go through with this. For anyone who has known me in the past, large commitments such as this have always been hard for me, I need to be %100 sure of what I’m about to do, and generally I never feel %100 sure about much. But, in this case I know that however hard it is to say goodbye to those I love, and it has and will continue to be very hard, it will be worth it! I keep telling myself that it’s only 12 weeks, a summer. And I can do this, I’ve been on my own before. I do know nothing but good will come from this, now to get those obnoxious emotions in check.

And to Alex, thank you so much for everything you’ve given me, I’m so blessed to have you in my life, Nakupenda and I can’t wait to see you in November.

The final countdown

Posted on by under Africa, Tanzania

One week to go! Everything is starting to feel very real. We just had our last conference call going over preflight information and final questions. I thought that at this point I would be feeling more anxious, but mostly I’m just really excited. I have all my supplies (I think) and everything is set, now comes the hardest part, starting to think about saying goodbye.

Two weeks to go!

Posted on by under Africa, CCS-Moshi, Tanzania

In two weeks from now I’ll be on a flight from Seattle to Amsterdam (a 9.75 hour flight) on my way to Moshi. I am unbelievably excited! I’ve been talking with a girl who is starting on the same date as I, and it is such a relief to feel like I’ll “know” someone there already! I am particularly excited to go on Safari! I think I (finally) have all of my supplies I’ll need, though I’m sure I’ll forget something! I feel like I’m bringing an absurd amount of stuff…but for three months that’s probably a good thing! Learning Swahili is going polepole (slowly), I sort of expected to be able to learn more, I’ve been studying a few hours everyday and making some progress but many of the grammar rules are quite confusing, for example nouns can belong to 16 different classes! Hopefully I’ll come back conversationally fluent! For now I know mostly “useful” phrases, such as greetings (Hujambo, Habari gani?) where are things (choh iko wapi-where is the bathroom), and emergency type phrases (Saidia!! Help, Hapana, No,Hospitali iko wapi-where’s the hospital), and several other random, and probably less useful phrases (sigundua kofia yangu!-I can’t find my hat.)

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