Day 8/9/10

Day 8/9/10
Kigoma-Mwanza-Dar-Nairobi-Zuruch-JFK-STL
I can't believe it's our last day!! It went by so fast this time. Is was an amazing group of people & I look forward to staying in touch with them & continuing to get to know each & every one.
Today Katie & I got up early to go distribute books to a school we visited last time. While everyone else had breakfast we took a taxi to Mwocachi School to meet with the teachers & present them with $6000 worth of school books. Two of our guides went with us. The teachers were so happy to see us & were even more happy when they found out what we were giving them.

After we presented the books, they took us to see the water we also got for them. It was very cool to see water in a place that had none before.

A few kids were wandering about & I noticed one boy with the shoes we gave out last time. I took his picture & he smiled so big! It was great to see that he still had his shoes.

After that Katie & I returned to have a quick breakfast before heading to the market with everyone else. It was sad to say goodbye to the hotel staff. They are all so awesome! We ended up at the same market stall as last time & the lady was so happy to see us. We all bought tons of stuff! I had to pay with US dollars because I was out of shillings & the lady didn't have change for me. I told her she could just keep the extra & she smiled so big & told me I was her bestest friend! After the market we headed to the airport.

We didn't have too long of a wait at Kigoma airport. Just enough time for everyone to get through & eat a little boxed lunch. We also said goodbye to our guide Badi. He told us some stories which were very entertaining. I had given him all of my leftover candy that I had brought on the trip because he loves chocolate. I told him next time I would bring more & he said to bring a whole box! Ha!
From Kigoma we had a brief stop in Mwanza & then it was on to Dar Es Salaam. We got to Dar quite early & had a 7 hour layover. The gate to check in wasn't open yet so we had to wait in the Flamingo Cafe. We all piled our luggage in, rounded up several tables & ordered food. Once we were all full & had some drinks in us things started to get a little crazy. When you get 18 people in an airport cafe w/ nothing to do it gets interesting. When we came in they were playing this song that we had all heard at dinner one night. It's the Jambo song. Gil was kind of dancing to it & the guy running the music realized we all liked it so he ended up putting it in repeat. We heard it about a hundred times over & over. We were all cracking up.

At some point someone (I'm pretty sure Gil) thought we should do a Conga line. Several people had bought maracas from the market & Katie had purchased a drum so we pulled those out & started going through the restaurant. It was super funny until the manger came & told us to stop. Oh well so much for that! 

I'm not even sure how we managed to waste so much time but it actually didn't feel that long. I think we were all hot, sleep deprived, & sad our trip was coming to an end. The flight from Dar to Zurich was good. I slept most of the time. At Zurich we had a 2 hour layover which Nora said was not enough. She thought we needed to hurry! Ha! We were all dying for the chocolate shop to open because we wanted to buy stuff to bring back. It was closed but Nora kept telling us it was going to open at 8. She had no idea but she was just positive thinking! Sure enough the lady showed up about 20 til & Nora stalked her until she opened. I'm sure our group looked like a crazy mess in Zurich. It was like 6:30 am & we were eating sandwiches, BBQ chips, drinking soda, & eating chocolate! We all bought some stuff & then it was time to head home. We were all very sad to be leaving but I know we'll all stay in touch. It was a great group & I'm so happy I went back!