Blogs from Tanzania, Africa - page 319

Hard to believe it’s a year since I came out here alone to prepare for the big move, so much has happened. Sometimes it feels like we’ve always been here, at others like we’ve only just arrived. Things are really moving on, we will have one Banda completely finished and furnished be Wednesday, providing the weather is good we can then take the promotional shots for marketing. The kitchens, store and office are now up and the bulk of the reception/dining area is built, the raised bar now has a roof, roughly another six weeks work and we will be able to start recruiting and staff training not to mention landscaping in an attempt to turn the site from a building site to an established looking lodge. We seem to be accumulating animals, we still ... read more

07.06.07 6:00 in the morning we left the African Parks house in Kalabo for the ride home. Still pitch black outside we navigated withy GPS to the entrance of the dirt road that would lead us back to Sitoti and further to Katima Molilo (Zambian Side). There is no petrol station before Livingstone at all, so we calculated hard and decided we would make it. Well, we arrived on the vapour in Livingstone. What a ride again. A shortcut turned out to be waterlogged and we had to double back another 50 Km through very deep sand. Once again, the local people are openly friendly and helpful. Sitting on our bonnet an old man directed us through thick bush and sandy foot paths to a track that eventually would connect to a more recent track. ... read more

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 National Park, the place made famous worldwide by Jane Goodall’s chimpanzee study (now in year 47). After a couple days of hiking, I tagged along with Jane as the unofficial photographer for her visits to ... read more

So we're finally here in Arusha.... after two looooong eight-hour flights. It's been a real culture shock already, from the Detroit airport, to the Netherlands, to Kilimanjaro airport. Once you get to the airport here, you walk out of the plane and into the front of the airport, which was kind of different. Everyone greeted us very warmly... we didn't even have to wait through customs, they just took our passports and we got our luggage and then they put us and our luggage on a shuttle to take us from Kilimanjaro to Arusha. We got to the school and they fed us. The school here (TCDC) is really nice, we have a sort of dining hall with cute tables with tableclothes and a small bar room with a piano and a pool table! And ... read more

With the plans for the summer starting, we wanted to have a little bit of time with Joshua before the campaign started. As most mom’s and dad’s, we are thrilled to have Joshua home, under the same roof as us. “Uncle Sam” basically paid for Joshua’s trip this year and for that we are thankful. We wanted to have some time alone with him and do something cool that was different. The campaign is three weeks long and pretty much consumes the entire day, 6 days of the week. We didn't really want to go to another park ... plus this is in High season, so harder to find one that is reasonably priced. Brent Richardson told us about this Mountain climb. Suppose to be just a couple days trip, cheaper if we drive our own ... read more