So, done with finals, done with the program. Fuckin’ weird man… Anyway, this morning was my oral Swahili final which, even though done on little sleep from the night our dancing before, I still managed to do fairly well despite my doubts going into it. Who knew I could actually talk about things in Swahili for 15 minutes… I sure didn’t. Anyway, it’s done, and it’s our last full day together. My test was early in the morning so most are still studying and waiting to take their test (thus me taking the opportunity to lay in bed and write this). This afternoon will be spent in town gathering things and extracting money to fund my adventures for the next three weeks. I leave in 20 days and this is all getting so surreal.
Though, as sad as the end of the program is, my time here is just now getting to the real “adventure”. Tomorrow morning at 8 AM I’ll board a bus out of Arusha and up to Nairobi, after a few stops, Ian, Kelsey, Justin, and I will catch a matatu or some other form of potentially deadly public transportation up to Niyuki and the base of mt Kenya. After fucking around and standing on the equator, we’ll begin our trek up Africa’s second tallest mountain. Though only (only) at 17,057 ft (around 2000 ft shorter than Kilimanjaro), mt Kenya is told to be one of the better, if not best, mountain to climb on the continent. Kilimanjaro, though cool to summit the tallest peak, was at around 3 times as expensive and overall a less exciting climb, though still pretty fucking cool. Sadly, we won’t be summiting the tallest peaks (way too technical for our liking, and expensive too), we’ll be getting fairly close as well as doing a full circuit around all the peaks and summiting the third highest point.
Once down, we’ll head back to Nairobi for a night there before catching yet another bus down to Dar es Salaam to meet up with those who climbed Kili. Our plans from here on out are not set in stone, but sometime we’ll head over to Zanzibar for a week of relaxing, swimming, and dancing. When I’ve exhausted my money, I’ll head back to Nairobi, say hi to the host fam and a few friends in town. Then on the night of the 22nd I’m on a plane to Amsterdam, then out to San Fran, over to Redding, then I’ll be in the car with my good ol’ mommy up to Ashland just in time for Christmas. If you want anything African, now’s your chance to request it. Otherwise I’ll see y’all in a few weeks!
