The journey to Nairobi was so long that at times I thought we weren’t ever going to arrive.

We started on a bus going out of Philly to NYC, which took 3 hours. Once we got to JFK, we took over a large area of seating and just did stuff anyone would do while waiting. Cards, newspapers, books, paging and all that. I snuck away to get into the Delta First Class lounge but was disappointed that there wasn’t very much of anything except an olive dip and much more comfortable seatings. After filling myself up with olives, I rejoined the flock. One of the Deaf Education volunteers made my day by breaking out Settlers of Catan!! I’m so going to play that out here, woot! After about 4 hours of waiting, we boarded the 4:20 flight for Amsterdam. Right after dinner, I smuggled a benydril off Noelle and am glad I did because I slept like a baby on that flight. We got into Amsterdam before dawn and mod of us changed into more appropriate attire for Kenya. Of course, there was more waiting.

Let me just say this – KLM is, next to air Tahiti Nui, one of the best airlines I’ve been on. The food and service is excellent and you can’t go wrong with personal TVs.

After what seemed like and was forever, we touched down to Nairobi after dusk. Upon exiting the airplane, I was greeted by very different smells – mostly rubber. Customs took a very long time but everything after that was a whirl. Past customs, we flocked out to the welcoming area (is that what they call it?) and there were these current PCVs and interpreters holding huge Peace Corps signs. One of the interpreters greeted me with a sign that looks like ASL’s ‘ girl + kiss + you ‘ which totally caught me off guard. I started saying no no I don’t want to kiss anyone. Turns out it’s the KSL sign for ‘ nice + meet + you ‘. I picked up on a lot new signs after that once I started talking to the interpreters and PCVs. We all loaded up into a bus and drove for about 30 minutes. I’m at a rather nice hostel that has WiFi access, whoo!!

We also ate our first Kenyan meal – a white soup, rice, red beans, some sort of sauerkraut and grilled chicken. Delicious.

This is Josh signing off under a mosquito net :D