It's been a mess, now the excitement is back!

Hanna, I think you were emotionally unstable yesterday when you wrote the last contribution in Swedish, due to stress of the 24 hours of not-knowing-if-we-ever-will-get-there. I decided to not write anything yesterday, as I wasn't sure if I could come up with logical sentences in ANY language at all at that point. And that's why I lift my hat (what's the saying in English, "att lyfta på hatten"?) to you for doing it after all the horrible mess. But here we are, AND WE ARE GOING !

Also Hanna, you are scaring me a bit with all your preparations :D but when I thought about it, I've nearly done as much as you have, you just compressed everything into tiny images. My preparations are still all over the house.

To be absolutely serious, the preparations for this trip have been almost ridiculously big. Or let's say that there are THOUSANDS of things you HAVE to think about or purchase to even be able to stay for one day. The most important are of course all the vaccinations and medicines (eg the yellow fever - you can't even get into the country without the certificate of taking the vaccination). Then there are the sun protections, other creams you might need, all the stuff that kill bacteria (wipes, gel..), first aid things (just to be sure if something happens, but of course we're all hoping that we won't need any of it)... The list could go on forever, really.

There's a certain magic in preparing yourself for something you know is going to be really, really fantastic. That's why I don't think any of us could complain about all the efforts we have chosen to make for this journey: to be honest, I think we all were almost on the edge of suicide yesterday (when we still thought we weren't going).

We are still waiting for more information about when-where-how (no why here, we all know the reason for going!) and the flights, but as long as we know we are going to leave the Finnish ground and set off at some point, there is no frenzy and need of information anymore.

Now, as you might imagine, I am enormously relieved to say :
The savannas, the elephants and the acacia trees are waiting for us!

Tsavo National Park, Kenya

// Crista