The Road to Tana..

this is the first photo i took. of chloe. who is looking over my shoulder right now. she's saying how amazing i am. (okay okay i may have twisted that a lil...) we were in the jhb airport. minutes after we both realised it had been hours since we left home, and neither of us had been taking photos. then we saw this GIANT tabasco sauce and our cameras were never the same...

what else? chloe went into every stationary shop looking for sillybandz. and EVENTUALLY(after Christof and i had rejected her. "you can go by yourself to this one, meet you at spur" --yes mom, we made sure she'd be safe first. CAMP RULES APPLY.

she found them, and bought so many she couldnt buy food haha (THATS dedication. especially from chloe..)

"there must be twentyfour letters in the pack" -chloe, about her alphabet sillybandz

"you know there are twenty six letters in the alphabet, right?" -andrea

*silence*

aaand we had a wonderful team vibe, anticipating GREAT times with our new family.. OH and they all realised how weird i am when i spent half an hour figuring out what i wanted.. changing my mind a hundred times.. (WHO doesnt have cranberry juice and a kiddies grilled chicken combo?! come on. OBVIOUSLY life gets complicated after the greatest meal ever has been denied.) and then eventually decided to satisfy the craving for a chico the clown. #mostdelicious

At Spur, we also spent some time asking Genevieve a ton of questions, bc she was the only one at our table who'd been to Tana before.

The rest of the journey was good... sat opposite Scar for the onetime journey CT to JHB.. on a tiny tiny plane. I haven't entered a plane from the back before.. that was interesting.. Aaand I met Dawid the Anaethetist. and Christof became our LEGIT BRO. we got lost in the airport. well, not lost. ALL the airport staff gave us incorrect directions. HOW do so many people not know what's going on?! gosh. In the end though, we ended up exactly where we started, and all was fine. "I just couldn't do any of that by myself. I have to travel with a man. -or Chloe." -andrea

We had a really long wait in the airport before our flight to Tana. Spent most of it at Exclusive Books, a group of us set up camp there. #great times

(Oh Tim, the lady on the plane intercom speaks French, you'd love it. -And all the stewardesses are French. Even here in Tana, everyone has that cool French accent!)

LV bag update: It KILLED me. KILLED ME. Bc yes, it is beautiful. But yes, it's me. And ofcourse the rolly thing didnt work. AND ofcourse it was way more full than ideal. "put EVERYTHING youd need into your carryon bc your luggage may not arrive" Anyway. My arm was slightly swollen for a bit, and i have legit scars on my shoulders. But it's alll good.

Kept having these 'Ohmygosh this is real. This. Is. Happening.' moments. So much time knowing it's gonna come, so much theoretical knowledge, so many stories heard. But this is ME. Here. Now. Whaaaat.

Other news: I had my first canned pawpaw experience. And they gave us HUGE cashews. They eat so much eggplant here, its divine. I end with a quote I got from Britt's goodbye letter:

"Remember that nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion"