Blogs from Africa - page 2770

The flight was great and on time. We watched a couple of movies, took a tylanol pm and woke up somewhere over Africa. My college roomate's mother, Edna, met us at the airport. She is our travel agent. We spent some time having coffee in the airport and going over the trip itinerary with her. We couldn't chat too long because we had to catch a flight to Cape Town. ... read more

Looking at my blog it seems like I am always on vacation. Peace Corps can be a lot of fun and I am so lucky to live in such an amazing country that has so many tourist attractions. But I am most often in Kelaa and usually doing something productive. This was a big weekend for me. On the 19th the women’s association I’ve been working with, El Ghad Al Bassim, organized a “cultural competition”. I’ve never seen anything like it in the US but it seems to be a fairly normal event here. There was a performance by Kelaa’s star lute player, Abderrhmane. I’ve seen him at events around town before and always noticed him for playing and singing beautifully. What I didn’t know until Saturday was that he speaks English perfectly. He’s never noticed ... read more

14-20 May After stumbling back to Efroud I got back on a bus and headed on to the second great city of Morocco - Marrakesh. After passing up the opportunity to walk through some beautiful gorges along the way due to concerns about getting sick again, I got sick again - this time in the small city of Ourzazate. The same symptoms presented themselves and I lay in bed for two days before going to the doctor in town. After walking up a set of dark stairs that didn't inspire too much confidence I arrived in a waiting hall in a second-story private clinic. After talking to the doctor in a mix of English and Spanish I told him that I was worried about malaria. He briefly examined me and didn't think that was the ... read more

Well, finally, after nearly a week of waiting (for the others.....1 1/2 weeks for me) I left Addis; it was actually a sad moment, I had grown to like that city and the habits I had got into there. My final days in the city were quite fun though, going out every night to the plenthora of bars on the Piazza, teaching the others (David (Beats), Dave, and Tania) Irish Snap...the proceeding to play it in the middle of a seedy little bar in a dodgy part of the Merkato, drinking proper Tej...which made Tania sick...then getting charged 8Birr just because Beats took a picture (we got them back though, snapping away happily as we left), watching Top Gun and Dave singing along to 'Highway to the Danger Zone', and many other things I can't remember. ... read more

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!... read more