First Glimpses

After our amazing wildlife Safari, we explored a different part of Tanzania, the city!!! Arusha is chaotic, dynamic, under construction and just busy, busy, busy. When we arrived into town it was market time and the main street was a sea of people, trucks, carts, wheelbarrows, produce and what struck us the most was colour. Tanzania is so colourful. The women are always dressed in beautiful kangas (wraps) and head scarves, bright oranges, pinks, yellows, every colour and pattern you could think of. These are set off so perfectly against their lovely dark skin. The backdrop of red mud roads and the stark contrast of the grey concrete buildings only works to make these colours even more prominent and spectacular. Word has it that Mzungas (white people) should wear dark Kangas as it looks better with our skin tone. How disappointing as I am drawn to the bright fabulous colours

When we left the cities of Arusha and Moshi, we headed up towards Kilema which is a small village at the base of Mt.. Kilimanjaro, our home for the next few weeks. Once we turned off the main highway at the town of Himo, we started the climb towards Kilema. At once you notice the lushness of this area. Banana trees, Mango trees, corn, gourds, sunflowers and many other plants I can’t name, abound here. It is amazing how many shades of green there are when you look out into the jungle.

Marangu is a small village where we turn off towards Kilema and the road changes from decent to a little scary. They are working on the road, which is great and Steph says it has made a huge improvement, although there are still portions where you feel like you are on the (too near) edge of the road and looking down into the lush ravine below. Dust is another always present feature of the roads. Luckily Boni, our driver is excellent at navigating these conditions and we arrive safe and sound at the gates of Kilema Hospital.

We drove through the large iron gates into the Kilema Hospital property. There was definitely excitement in the air as we all got our first glimpses of where we would be living for the next few weeks. There were people all around, waiting, waiting, waiting. Africans are incredibly patient people, we could all learn something from them.

Our digs are simple but cosy. A huge (new) dining area with multiple rooms off this area. We divided up into our snoring and non-snoring rooms and settled in under our mosquito nets.