Off to Tanzania for East African beaches and safari!

Good morning! After that fairly serious post last night, I felt like it would be a good idea to lighten the mood and tell you about Melody and my vacation plans for the next several days (Melody and I went to UVA together). In all honesty, I'm also killing time waiting for a taxi and have had way too much Rwandan coffee this morning. A side note on Rwandan coffee:   I believe that Starbucks originally sourced its coffee from Rwanda. It's particularly good because of excellent growing conditions being along the equator with volcanic soil.

Anyway, so yes, I'm already taking a vacation. I actually came to Kigali a bit earlier than my contract in order to be able to squeeze this trip in before Melody starts business school. I got a text last night that Melody had left Greece and is flying through Ethiopia. I leave in a few hours to fly through Kilimanjaro, where I am praying that the Visa process is simple. Interestingly the price for a Visa is double only for Americans. I'm told this is because we charge Tanzanians a large sum to come to the U.S. 

This evening, Melody and I will meet-up in Dar Es Salaam, which is the capital of Tanzania, and take a tiny plane over to Zanzibar. I actually like those small planes because they normally let me ride co-pilot. So anyway,  it'll be a day full of traveling, which amazes me considering Rwanda and Tanzania border each other.

Flying through Kiligmanjaro is a little wistful. I wish I could stay in Kili on the way back and climb to the summit. I'm jealous of all of you Kellogg people who are doing that this summer :) After my first run yesterday in the "Land of a Thousand Hills," I think I could possibly get into pretty good shape here. I set out on a 45 minute run yesterday to try and see the city and ended up walking after about 10 minutes. These are serious hills, one after the other. 

A few interesting things I've learned about Rwanda so far:

- Asking (in French) how to say things in Kinyarwanda earns you major bonus points and new friends.

- Electricity is pre-paid. You buy credits and then punch in a code, so there's no billing. So, I suppose theoretically you could give someone electricity for Christmas. 

- 90% of the population has health insurance; which is a higher percentage than the U.S. by the way.

That's all for now. I'll check back in with pictures from Zanzibar soon!

Love,
Meredith