Blogs from Africa - page 2773

Photos for Ngorongoro Crater Africa » Tanzania » Ngorongoro Crater By ChivalryMay 18th 2007Johan PhoeaOK.. photos for Ngorongo Crater is up.. Enjoy!!... read more

May 8 Cheetah Farm We had a great sleep and slept in a little bit late to make up for the sleepless bus ride the night before. Charlene and Pete are great hosts. They make us feel at home. Dakotah especially felt at home because there was a bird there. Unfortunately the little guy died that night. Pete, Charlene’s husband, had to go North today to help with tiling the new Orphanage so he didn’t get to come on our adventures these next few days. Today we went out to the Cheetah farm outside of Okahandja leaving late morning. We had a flat tire (or TYRE as they spell it in Namibia) on the way, fixed that up while we ate really great Pizza. We got to the Cheetah place at quarter to 4pm and ... read more

Middle school in Burkina goes from 7th to 10th grade. At the end of the 10th grade, students have to pass a national exam to get into high school, or lycée. There is no lycée in the village, so making it to high school means you get to move to the city. If a student fails the exam but is close to passing, he or she can repeat the 10th grade and try again the next year. If his or her score is too low, he or she is finished with school for good. The math and science tests for the BEPC involve some difficult questions - the kinds of topics that students back home learn in high school appear on the test to go to high school. That is the French system - the ... read more

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... So while Richard went into town to see a Mr Fix-It, Luke and I went out to film on the building site - trying to conserve as much battery as possible just in case the ... read more

I’m in love…. again. Yes, I know I’m prone to this affliction, at least as regards the places I visit, but it was love at first sight with Malawi. Even the mayhem at Blantyre airport when I arrived didn’t bother me: the warmth of the people waving and smiling from the balcony above the immigration/baggage collection area (I’d hesitate to call it the “arrivals hall”) at arriving friends and relations countered any possible frustration at the ad hoc immigration and baggage retrieval procedures. There was a long queue, reaching back nearly to the foot of the steps from the ‘plane, for the “immigration counter”, a couple of desks set up on an apparently temporary basis in a dark corridor to deal with arriving foreigners (Blantyre clearly does not get many international flights each day), a ... read more