LETTER from EDITOR

W e booked our first trip to Tanzania for October of 2020. Because of the pandemic, we had to fly all the way to Qatar, change planes & retract back to Africa. It took over 42 hours to get to Tanzania. We were exhausted and drained.

Our plane was scheduled to land at 7am. As we were getting closer, the pilot radio came on asking everyone to look to their left side. The moment my eyes locked on a small plane window, my heart skipped a beat: the rising sun was bathing the very top of Mount Kilimanjaro in golden rays. The beauty of Tanzanian nature, pure yet breathtaking, was welcoming us in.

Our plane landed in the smallest (although international) airport I have ever been to. As we walked down the tarmac and our feet touched the ground for the time, an unexplainable sense of belonging gushed through every cell of my body. It was overwhelmingly peaceful. Felt like… I came home. That feeling never left.

We came back to Africa many times after, but this unique, all-embodying feeling of belonging resurfaced every time we made our way to Tanzania. There is no other place like it.

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I never thought when googling “best times to go to Serengeti”, and then trying to figure out how to book tickets on a tiny plane that would actually take us to Serengeti, that I was booking tickets that would change my life forever.

Being in Tanzania was not only about the overwhelming, hard-to-explain-in-words feeling of belonging.

It was also about love. Genuine. Real. Unfiltered and unconditional. The kind that heals you & gives you wings to fly. The kind that makes you look at everything differently. The kind that changes you. For the better.

Tanzania is about connecting to nature and connecting to self. And then it was also about connecting with people, who’d become your life-long friends.

More than friends. Family. Blood. Parts of your hearts and lives. Forever. It feels like we have known each other from somewhere before. Unexplainable. Yet, very real.

Tanzania showed what veritable life is. Life without noise. Life where kindness matters. Life where being genuine is the only way to live. Life where you can just be. As you are. Without judgment or expectations.

Tanzania changes you. That’s what it does: it changes you. It’s impossible to go there and come back being the same.

You become a different person. You see things in a new way. You care. Care so much!

About everything, with the world, nature & people prevailing over all.

But Africa changed me. Filled my soul. Nourished my heart. Made me a better person, too. Definitely, a happier one.

Africa will change you too. Trust me. We are sharing some of our thoughts through words & pictures with you here. I do believe that energy has no boundaries or limitations.

Tanzania is our happy place. May some of that happiness become a part of your life, too.

Our favorite place in the entire Tanzania. When you come to TAASA, you are home...