Blogs from East, Tanzania, Africa - page 11

Cant believe that I will soon be thinking about coming home, Yamba has very easily and quickly become my home and I will really miss it. Had another good week at school this week. The exams are done so had time to play lots of games and do nice art activities with the kids. I have also been out and about a lot trying to see as much of the area as I can, the views keep getting better as everything is really green - also a lot more creepy crawlies around now too. We have been having little camp fires at night as the stars have been fantastic, last night saw jupiter, andromedea and as usual the milky way was spectacular. it was the clearest night yet with loads of shooting stars. The rats have ... read more

Hi we went camping this weekend to Lushoto, in the Usambara mountains. We stayed in Irente Cliff View camping, in the famous Irente Viewpoint. From the viewpoint you see the village of Mazinde almost 1,000 meters below the vast Maasai Plains beyond. Lushoto is a leaf highland town mixes pines and eucalyptus with tea plantations, coffee plantations, banana plantations ando there tropical foliage. Its the main settlement in the Usambara and the base for hiking and trekking. IMPORTANCE OF USAMBARA MOUNTAINS (Lushoto) 1. The Usambara Mountains have several eco-tourism attractions that can be experienced by a variety of means. 2. With a high level of biological, hydrological and meteorological activity, along with a rich social history, the Usambara Mountains are home to many researchers. 3. The East and West Usambara Mountains have substantial endemic, rare and ... read more

Tanzania is a peace-loving country. You have only to examine its language to figure that out. Tanzanians have a plethora of ways to say that everything is fine, ok, peaceful, and so on. Salaama, mzima, nzuri, poa, safi, etc., etc. When I asked my Swahili teacher how one says "I'm not doing well", she told me that I shouldn't say that because it raises too many questions! Better to just say, you're fine. Language is indeed a reflection of culture. Recently, Tanzania held presidential elections, which it holds every five years. The incument, Kikwete, was re-elected, although there were many grumblings of dissatisfaction with his performance. When I asked my taxi driver why, if they were unhappy with him, did people still vote for him. My wise, if not-so-educated or conversant in English taxi driver explained ... read more

I could not stand the thought of returning to Dar es Salam and getting a bus, so I treated myself to a flight on a small local airline from Zanzibar to Tanga. The plane was a small 14 seater and there was a couple from NZ also on the flight, everyone else were locals, the flight went via another island called Pemba, then on to Tanga. As we landed there was crowds for people cheering, waving flags and there was also a brass band playing, we joked that they had heard we were coming, and waved as we stepped off the plane, then as one of the other African passengers stepped out behind us, the crowd went wild and he just laughter at us. It turned out that he is hoping to be the next president ... read more

My last day of volunteering--bittersweet. Saying goodbye to my students was tough--especially the little ones, but I won't miss the long walk. And it's a milemarker that means I'm one step closer to seeing my husband. I nearly cry when I walk into my classroom at Jecaan. In such a short time, I've really grown to love my work here and I understand how much these kids could use an opportunity like this--to be able to color and sing and have fun and be praised. I give my last lesson, "E is for elephant" and the kids get to color an elephant and we go through the alphabet phonetically one last time. We sing Old McDonald and I give the extra copies of the worksheets to Teacher R as I have each day and she's just ... read more