Blogs from Africa - page 2763

PHOTOS - Link Day 1 - Cape Town After arriving into Cape Town at around 11pm and having already spent a night in Sydney airport followed by 16 hours on planes, I passed out in my hostel bed in the hope that I might actually wake up in time to meet my group the next day! Luckily, or not, a fire alarm (false one) at 5am was my wake up call and the smell of sick in the room (god knows who'd done it) was enough to get me up! At breakfast I met most of the group, 23 of us, although remembering their names was going to be one of the biggest challenges of the trip. There's a good mix of boys/girls, couples etc which was a relief after having spent most of South America ... read more

We arrived in Marrakech (also spelled Marrakesh in case you're wondering) after our 8 hour train ride and went looking for our hotel. This time we stayed at Hotel Amani. Again, we dumped our bags and headed right out to find food. We took a petit taxi (a small taxi) out to the big market and immediately saw that this was very different than Fez. There were tents with tables and chairs set up with just about any kind of food you could want. There were small children, who should have been in bed, out running around begging for money and huffing paint. There were drunks and many more young people than what we had seen in Fez. Where Fez was traditional and seemed mostly untouched by tourism, Marrakech seemed like the tourist hotspot. We ... read more

Nothing too exciting to report yet... I had two meetings today, then came back and did some work at the hotel. Actually I feel crummy, and I'll tell you why. Native Mozambicans can't afford to eat in restaurants or things like that, so I feel like a big heel eating in restaurants. Today, ate in a room full of expats for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, served by the people whose country that we're in. I can't explain really how that feels... But it makes me feel really bad. Especially because we are all here from development organizations. You name it, and they are here - Gates, USAID, UNFPA, UNAIDS, the World Food Programme, CDC, etc., plus all the aid organizations from other countries... But, I can see the Mozambique Channel from my hotel room window, it ... read more

hey everyone, i know i'm behind with the blog, sorry! (pole!) the internet is tempermental here and we have been super busy. the Nogorongoro Crater: two words - friggin amazing!! safari is probably the most fun i have ever had. it was crazy awesome!! we camped out side the park and drove in early saturday morning. the views are outstanding, very jungling on the way up and then as you descend into the crater you can see the whole interior which is like a large plain with a lake in the middle. within minutes we were in the minute of a zebra herd. we drove right through them as they were hanging out by the road. we were about 3 meters away. the safari landrover is cool, you can stand on the seats while the guide ... read more

Well my first week is almost complete in Sudan. Six days ago I stepped off the Lufthansa plane into what felt like a the blast of a hairdryer... 42 degrees. Wow. But it's a dry heat.... seriously. hahaha. Khartoum is like any other city, it has restaurants, corner stores, and traffic lights. That is where the similarities end. There is a constant lingering smell of buring charcoal, dirt, and heat.... to me, it actually smells different when it gets hot outside... weird. My introduction to the United Nations has been interesting to say the least. What I have seen so far indicates a behemoth of an organization, centered around process, paper work and small feifdoms. It seems each department has it's own agenda, and it is the most important agenda, of course. However, the individual departments ... read more