Mambo mazuri hayana haraka...

...good things cannot be rushed.

That phrase certainly encapsulates my experience getting ready to leave for the summer. Though it took a long while to receive my summer placement, it finally came and seems absolutely perfect for me (see last post). The project for this past week was to purchase a plane ticket- sounds pretty simple right? Well, flying across the world is not nearly as simple (nor as cheap) as flying to another state. I thought I could spend an hour or so looking at different websites comparing prices and then purchase a ticket. Yea, not that simple.

First, my dad thought it was a good idea to call the people at IFRE to make sure I knew exactly what day to arrive in Dar es Salaam even though I was positive I knew when to get there. Turns out, I was wrong and dad was right (way to go, dad!). So, all of the flight research I did was out.

Then, for some reason, in the 24 hour period that I waited to get the ticket, the rest of the world (literally) decided to get a ticket to Tanzania, so availability had gone down and prices had gone up. Not a happy moment for me since I am traveling on such a tight budget. Seeing my frustration, my dad suggests that we look our credit card rewards program to see if we have enough points to get me to Tanzania. Turns out we do (I knew all of my credit card spending was a good thing)! South African Airlines (SAA) has a flight that goes from Ft. Lauderdale to Washington-Dulles to somewhere in Germany to Johannesburg, South Africa and, finally, to Dar es Salaam. A lot of stops I know, but I am willing to do almost anything for a free ticket. So, I make my dad call SAA (I hate making phone calls) to book the ticket only to find out that the free ticket deal works only from Dulles to Johannesburg; I would have to purchase my ticket from Ft. Lauderdale to Dulles and from Johannesburg to Dar es Salaam. So this was out of the picture.

I'm pretty sure by this point I was ready to just throw on my bathing suit and swim to Dar es Salaam ( I have to admit, I am a pretty strong swimmer...). So now, three days after I had originally intended to purchase the ticket, I was still ticket-less and rather frustrated. But by some miracle, the third night I was able to find a ticket that was only mildly out of my price range (thanks mom and dad for paying the difference!) On July 2nd, I fly British Airways from Miami to London and from London to Dar es Salaam, arriving on July 4th. I don't have to be there until July 6th, so I will spend two days sleeping and sightseeing.

Now that I have a ticket, I can get a visa (no, not the credit card) for Tanzania. Though I really wanted to get that sent to the embassy last week, everything was delayed because of the plane ticket so I will be sending it out on Monday or Tuesday. Keep your fingers crossed that the Tanzanian embassy accepts my application!

What have I learned from all of this? Mambo mazuri hayana haraka- good things cannot be rushed. The world works on its own time, not Jennifer time, so I just need to go with the flow and everything will happen when it happens. It's a good lesson for me.

Mpaka baadaye (until later), namaste.