Amsterdam to Accra

I just looked out the window right now; desert as far as the eye can see (which is a heck of a lot at 10,668m above the ground). I can’t possibly fathom the Sahara Desert. Not even now that I’m staring wide-eyed out a window at it. There’s something about a parching hot sun in a seemingly eternally dry land that is just beyond my imagination right now. Perhaps it won’t be for long.

Everyone from EWB who was passed out around the aircraft for the first half of the flight is wide awake now, staring out any available window and/or writing furiously in their journals. For all of us this is suddenly all very real; it’s really happening—we’re going to Africa! I can hear Elisa a few rows behind me talking to a Ghanaian about farming in Canada. The guy she’s talking to is hilarious and sounds so happy about everything. All I can think about is how often I’ll be having similar conversations over the next few months...

Apoorva and I just spent the last ten minutes with our faces glued to two windows at the back on either side of the plane. On the right side it’s ridiculously dry, with tall sand dunes that you can actually see shifting in the winds. In the distance was a random oasis in the middle of the desert, with a small town around it. The farms around the town were interesting in that they were actually circular instead of the typical rectangular fields that I’m used to seeing. They’re massive circles too—at least a kilometre in diameter from what we could guess. Meanwhile on the left side of the plane there are visible signs of rainfall across the land, and apparently Kyle and Jamaal just spotted a football stadium in what looked like a major city. Judging by the plane’s tracking on the monitors it’s most likely El Menia, which is in Algeria.

Soon we'll be over Mali, Burkina Faso, then finally Ghana as the sun is setting. My battery is dieing, so I'll end this and continue enjoying the fantastic view.