Arrival in Arusha

When I stepped onto the tarmac at Kilimanjaro International Airport the first thing I noticed was the smell. I had never smelled it before. It was like wood and earth and heavy air and will always be the smell that for me embodies Africa. (Soon after I discovered lots of other, less pleasant African smells, but for the moment that’s beside the point.)

Despite the images “International Airport” might conjure, KIA is basically two rooms: one for arrivals and the other for baggage. I made it past my fellow travellers to fill out my visa forms and thought I would be the first one through until I got in the wrong line and had to start all over again, but I somehow avoided paying any visa fees, so I was relatively pleased, mostly that I wouldn’t have to take any money out of the money belt mom made me wear and that made me look misshapen.

Considering I was on a direct flight from Amsterdam and my bags had successfully made six connections from the time I started my trip in Charlottetown about a week previous, it didn’t even occur to me they wouldn’t come until I heard the dreaded sound of the baggage belt coming to a stop and still didn’t have any of my luggage. A porter suggested I look around on the floor for my bags so I wandered around trying not to totally lose it and start bawling in the middle of the airport. All I had in my carryon were a few extra pairs of underwear and my malaria medication and I was about to spend three months in Africa. Soon after I got in the lost luggage line, resigned to the fact I would never see my possessions again, the belt came back on. Turns out they hadn’t unloaded everything because the plane was continuing on to Dar es Salaam. Hallelujah.

So I got my bags and tottered out to where all of the safari operators were standing with name cards looking anxiously for my own name or at least the familiar blue UN crest. Everyone knows how much I love the UN, but all of my dreams of the noble world government were shattered in that moment. They weren’t there. Soon I was surrounded by men saying “Taxi? Taxi?” and I was responding “No, ICTR, UN” and holding on uselessly to my “Intern Information Sheet” that indicated that the UN transport would pick me up at the airport. The taxi drivers or whoever they were started crowding around me, looking at my sheet and saying “Eye See Tee Are” and one even phoned the number of the internship coordinator, of course to no avail since it was 10pm. Despite the fact that they were all at worst harmless and at best helpful I was so overwhelmed I pretty much fled (as best I could with a luggage trolley) back into the airport and asked an airport staff/soldier (he really could have been either considering he had a rifle) where I could get a taxi. He pointed to one of his friends and told me he would take me for 50 USD and heard the voice of the guy on Unsolved Mysteries in my head saying “No one ever saw her again.”

As I slumped in the back of the taxi feeling sick, scared, and alone I looked out the window and realized that even the stars are different here. I had never been so depressed in my entire life. The cab driver Edward was nice and weirdly kept telling me “You are welcome” [which I later learned was because in Swahili, the word “karibu” means “welcome” but like the Quebec “bienvenue” can also mean “you’re welcome” (as in post-thank you)]. We arrived at my guesthouse in the pitch dark and I signed in, noting that I was the only non-African on the guest list and feeling this did not bode well, and went to my room with the gate person carrying my heavy suitcase on his back. It was actually quite decent even by Western standards, certainly not luxury, but functional. But after spending a week in pristine Bavaria with Miriam I felt like I had just been kicked out of the Garden of Eden and sent right to hell. They had turned on the TV for me to some Latin American soap opera dubbed into English and as I looked at the mosquito net hanging over the bed, the windows that didn’t quite close (thank goodness I was on the second floor), the Spartan furniture, and the drain in the floor that marked my shower, I really did cry. When I got into bed under the mosquito net I had my money belt and flashlight beside me and tried very hard to touch everything (including net, sheets, pillows, blankets, etc.) as little as possible. I curled up into a miserable ball and prayed that when I woke up I would be back in Montreal about a month previous when my life was still intact.