The Journey

 After leaving Perth at 10:30pm on Tuesday I arrived in Dubai early Wedneday morning (local time) and managed to run into Naomi and Claire (the other 2 girls going to Murgwanza) after only an hour wandering around Dubai airport. We passed the time by playing cards in McDonalds before catching our flight to Nairobi.

Nairobi was fun as our luggage was only checked as far as there and so we had to pick it up to put on the next flight. Their luggage collection area is after the visa point so we had to find an airline representative to walk us down to collect our luggage. After about an hour, with awful visions of finding our luggage had been taken, we managed to locate someone to takes us to collect our bags, which were still circling on the carousel. We then had 10 hours to kill before our flight to Kigali, which is not an easy thing to do in a poorly airconditioned airport after being awake for 36 hours.

Our flight into Kigali, Rwanda arrived at around midnight and after buying visas we discovered that Customs is merely a guy standing at a doorway who makes you remove all visible plastic bags (Rwanda is going plastic bag free) and then let us through, no checks, no questions – I had no idea that getting my bag of medical supplies through would be so easy. A person from the guest house we had booked into met us and took us back to the guest house where we fell into grateful sleep.

The taxi took us to the border with Tanzania the next morning and we only had one flat tire on the way and our driver actually had a functional spare!! Rwanda is beautiful and doing quite well. The roads are all well paved (less potholes than most Australian roads) and clean and the buildings are well kept.  Kigali,  the capital, is in a valley and is beautifully green.

We crossed into Tanzania at the Rusumo Falls and after being proposed to by the Border officer in Tanzania we were finally in Tanzania!!!!

The difference once you cross into Tanzania is remarkable. The roads become potholed and are not paved in all places and many of the houses are only woven sticks and mud. The better houses are brick or mud brick with a concrete render and concrete floors.  We crossed a river just after leaving the border on a wooden raft pulled across by three or four men, which was an interesting experience.

Our house, called Masista, is in the hospital grounds and is very nice. It is brick with cement floors and limewashed walls, which leave white streaks on your clothes when you lean on them. We have electricity and running water 24hrs a day. We even have a brand new microwave, fridge and electric kettle. To make sure we still feel like it is Africa we have no hot water and so are getting quite good at bucket baths.