I'm in Dar and Hannah is sitting right next to me. I'm so unbelievably happy right now!!! We arrived in Dar on wednesday, 6 hours late (14hrs on a bus) and after a small incidence with a pepsi bottle through our windscreen. We were all ok, just a few scratches but we had to wait around for hours while people got fixed up at the hospital and spoke to the police. We finally arrived at 8.30 and from the time between getting off the bus and into the taxi some talented pickpocket managed to get my phone from inside my bag [View Full Entry]

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Just two weeks removed from my “last day” volunteering in Dar es Salaam and there’s so much to talk about! During this stretch I met up with Erica, a friend from the NOLS India trek (refer to “The Trek”) who joined me to visit the island of Zanzibar where we met up with two more friends - Carrie and Rob - who’ve recently finished graduate school at UW in Seattle. After a few days of relaxing beach time followed by cultural immersion in Stonetown, the four of us hopped on a plane to Kigoma for a visit to Gombe Stream [View Full Entry]

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Sorry this entry was lost in the Travel Blog Crash.. But at least we can still enjoy the pictures ~Julie [View Full Entry]

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I'm not sure where the time has all gone, but somehow I find myself at the end of my stint living in Dar es Salaam and working with the local Roots & Shoots groups. I spent a lot of the last blog entry reflecting on the trip in general, so I need to let you know what I've been up to these past few weeks. Many of the photos in this entry have been compiled over the last couple months (aka the long rains), but there are quite a bit more here, which is a new site as I'm leaving [View Full Entry]

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Early start for a long drive from Arusha to Dar es Salaam (so early Andy was still drunk). Endured some crazy thunderstorms in the slightly leaky truck. We had to pull over at one point to check the truck but we made it in the end! Although the journey was long, it was fascinating, especially sitting in the back with the windows open. Everyone walking by seemed so friendly, shouting "Jambo!" (hello) as we drove past. The children were very sweet, often chasing us along the road shouting "Muzungu", their word for white people, which apparently translates to "man without [View Full Entry]

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Today we went back to the Maitumaini School for disabled children to do some filming and give them some gifts we had brought over from Australia. We learnt more about some of the children at the school. One girl, Maria, was badly burnt when her family home was struck by lightening and burst into flames. As a consequence she is now an amputee - losing one leg just above the knee and her right arm below the elbow. Her mother died in the incident, her father two years later. She is now waiting for a prosthetic limb to be made [View Full Entry]

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So we arrived into Dar es Salaam this morning, were met by the guy from the language school and have settled into our Salvation Army Hostel which is basic but will probably seem like a luxurious memory once we move out to the camps! There was a church service going on in the hostel which I popped into for a few minutes, sang a few songs, great stuff! Anyway we're on our way to the beach so just to say I've arrived, all's well, other volunteers seem really cool and will write a proper entry soon! [View Full Entry]

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The Sunday Meeting at Morchimba corps was great. Even though it was extremely loud (they had a generator running the sound system and it seems the only volume here is full blast!), it was a great atmosphere with loads of dancing, clapping and hollering from the ladies! There were several special “acts” - two choirs sang beautifully and some of the children came up and danced. And the whole thing was over in just under three hours! [View Full Entry]

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Another hot and steamy day out on the building site to shoot. The good news is that our “Mr Fix-it” fixed our equipment that had been fried in the power surge! So we no longer had to conserve camera batteries today. Still, Richard had time in between shoots to do a bit of mortar work on the building site! The Morchimba villagers have been great. They come out to help with the building and yesterday they even cooked us up a big feed of maize, spinach and beef stew (which we had to eat with our fingers which was interesting!) [View Full Entry]

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This morning we discovered what life is like in Africa. It was about 6:30am and the lights in our little bungalows started to buzz and shine very brightly... all of a sudden - POOF! The power blew out the lights. I was working on my laptop at the time and just before the electricity blew I was able to pull the cord out so I managed to save my computer from being fried by the power surge. The guys weren't as lucky. They had their camera batteries charging and the whole charger just popped like a cork and went dead... [View Full Entry]

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