I'm Here And Safe

Greetings from Kenya! I am finally in Africa and I have bouts of absolute excitement and I just start laughing out loud. Of course that's between all the waiting and walking around we're all doing as a group of 37. Right now we are being forced to write home and tell our loved ones that we are okay and loving life before we're allowed to have lunch.

We spent our first night in a conservation camp, pretty primitive, and were greeted with dozens of baboons running all around us in the morning. Today is about getting the right visas, exchanging money, buying local cell phones and picking phone plans (a requirement for this program) and slowly trying to learn each others' names and interests as we walk around the crowded streets of Nairobi like one big white blob. Despite not having a lick of water and only a small breakfast hours ago, I am really enjoying myself. These students are great. I seriously think I love each and every one of them already. And with that thought I should get going for now because there are three of them now sitting beside me waiting to write their families as all 37 of us invaded a small internet shop four stories up from the bustling, fumy street below. They will feed us in a bit, and after we're all done with our errands we're being brought to the resort in a nature reserve where we will learn everything about each other for the next three days. On Saturday I meet my new African family.

I love this place. I know I'll complain later, many many times. But I am absolutely in love with this place!

Love to you all. Thanks for listening. Asante.

Emily Sara