Tanzania - Kibosho Library and School

After 16 hours of traveling, we made it to Arusha, Tanzania.  Our driver, Malisa, from Calabash met us at the airport and drove us the hour from the airport to the Arusha Hotel.  Malisa introduced us to "free African massages", which was what he called the bumps/speed bumps along the road.  (During our trip, we got a lot of free massages...the roads are quite bumpy.)

After a good night's rest, we were up, had breakfast at the hotel, and then were off to the Kibosho library. The breakfasts at the hotel were good, but the fresh mango juice was definitely worth waking up early for.   We organized our trip through Global Alliance for Africa, which is a non-profit that built the library.  It was a clear day and we got great views of Kilimanjaro during the drive.  We didn't know it at the time, but Kibosho was where we finished the climb.

We arrived at the library and discovered that it was right by a primary school.  We met Bavo (the librarian) and the school's principal.  They provided a tour of the school and the library.  We learned that the school grows a lot of the food it uses for lunch and uses crop rotation (corn and beans).  The school and library don't have electricity or running water, so the kitchen was a women cooking in a large pot over a wood burning fire and some of the classes take place outside.  We think it was a porridge of some kind, which later we would learn wasn't a favorite of the men in the group.  The library is working to grow its selection and currently only has one set of lesson books for all of the kids to share.  However, they are extremely excited to even have a library.  Makes us definitely thankful for what we have in the United States!

We also got to play some with the kids, which was mostly dancing with them while we sang a song that we really don't know the words to.

After the tour we drove to Moshi for lunch.  Malisa took us to the place where a lot of the police in Moshi eat - The Police Mess - so we dubbed it the Dunkin' Donuts of Africa.  :)  The food was good and we were interested to see the soda served in bottles.  When was the last time you had a bottle of Coke?

After having the afternoon to rest/nap, we had a meeting with Tillya (from Calabash) and Iddy (our main guide).  They gave us a run down of what to expect on the mountain and did a quick inspection of our gear.

After a quick dinner at the Africafe down the street(Matt had really good chicken Marsala , we all turned in early to get our last night's sleep in a bed for about a week.