Karibu Tanzania!

The wheels pivot and the lumbering plane pauses. The engines build and suddenly lurch, thrusting forward. I am gently pinned back against my seat as we race down the runway. Soon the tension is relieved as the plane, miraculously and impossibly slowly, lifts off the ground.

Newly familiar landscape whizzes by and looses its harsh distinctions as we rise ever faster above the Ethiopian plateau. Now the fields, desperately and lovingly slaved over, are but irregular patchwork of dull green and brown. The dramatic crevasses and sheer cliffs of the mountains are dark lines, wrinkles on the landscape.

Thin gray smog hovers in the distance and I know we are approaching Nairobi. The cloud masks the continuing turmoil in this country, once touted as the symbol of stability and growth in East Africa. Thinking back to my time here a year and a half ago, I remember the tribalism and not so thinly veiled political tensions.

A sensation of weightlessness overcomes me now as we descend ever closer to the Tanzanian plains. I am lifted off my seat and my stomach it seems has gone all the way up into the overhead compartment. I am reassembled seconds later and the plane continues on its jostling descent. During this short flight, I note that the earth has turned from grayish brown to the familiar parched rust. And then I catch Kilimanjaro out of the corner of my eye. I forget my nausea and feel… at home again…