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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