Mambo! We are writing from a nice, air-conditioned Internet Cafe in Stonetown, Zanzibar, literally a 30 second walk away from the beach. It's hard to believe that tomorrow we leave already...this adventure has positively FLOWN by! We left Tanga on Sunday to stay with a friend in Dar es Salaam for a night (we actually ended up watching Transformers 2 on the LARGEST SCREEN IN EAST AFRICA!!! Can't get much cooler than that in Tanzania, even though the screen itself was slightly smaller than our beloved and almost antique "Findlay 6" Cinema!). Ferry to Zanzibar Monday morning, and somehow w [View Full Entry]

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Hello to all! We've had a VERY eventful past few days after returning from Moshi. Wednesday and Thursday afternoons were packed full of bonding time with our beloved girls at the orphanage, and on Wednesday evening Tom and I actually bopped over to Popetlal Secondary School to check out what we heard was a pretty vibrant Ultimate Frisbee culture here in Tanga, and we weren't disappointed! Such good fun just chilling with the locals and internationals who came out to play, and I even went again last night! Thursday and Friday mornings we volunteered at Burhani Primary School, a new privat [View Full Entry]

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Hellohello! A quick blog update now before we have lunch plans with another wonderful Rotarian... Monday and Tuesday we made an excursion to Moshi, TZ, which is a little market-town at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro. The 6-hour bus ride was outrageous in every way but the price - only 11,000 Tsh, or about 8 USD - truly an African safari adventure! It was cloudy on the drive in and as we checked into our hostel (Kili is so huge that it literally creates its own weather for the surrounding area), so Tom and I were feeling a little frustrated that [View Full Entry]

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What a day!!! Yesterday was a full day of festivities for Tanga's Rotary Club. First was the opening of a new footbridge for a school whose students were crossing a 50-foot ravine on a bridge made of wood and rope...incredible...then to the opening of the two new classrooms and a teachers' workroom at Majenga School, which was unbelievably powerful. The building is BEAUTIFUL! I can't wait to put up pictures of this new school area - it's crazy to see this shiny new building next to the old buildings (which, until now, were crammed with up to 170 students per classroom...granted, [View Full Entry]

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Finally! Another blog post. We've had some Internet problems...Tuesday night we didn't have a chance to update, and last night there was a brownout in the city, so our region of Tanga had no power. (It's Africa - we go with the flow :D) Our past few days have been absolutely phenomenal...our favorite memories have DEFINITELY taken place at The Stehmann House, which is the orphanage we work at each day. So far we have spent time with just the 19 girls, ages 7-22, and will meet the 12 boys tomorrow. We've spent about 5 hours with the girls each day, [View Full Entry]

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Mambo! We have finally arrived. We attempted to blog last night, and, in fact, had a full page written after an hour on what quite possibly was the slowest Internet connection since Reagan was in office when the connection decided to black out. And so we will only paraphrase our last few moments in Dubai... The highlight of our Saturday certainly was the surprise visit to the Rashid Government Hospital, where I discovered I am the proud carrier of a throat full of Tonsilitus! No worries, though - the nice doctor there prescribed medications and I've been taking them for a [View Full Entry]

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Hello all! Tom and I are updating from the lobby of the Traders Hotel by Shangri-la in Dubai, United Arab Emirates after paying 20 Dirhams (equivalent USD 6) for a 45-minute Internet session. Unfortunately, we won't be able to upload pictures to this blog throughout the trip because we don't have a mechanism to bring them from the camera to the Internet...so keep an eye out for them on this blog when we return! But what a trip so far! The flight from NYC to Dubai was long, but we were made VERY comfortable by Emirate airlines (complete with aisle ceilings [View Full Entry]

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Tom and I are getting SO excited - we'll try to update this blog a few times a week while we're gone so all our beloved friends and supporters who have made this dream FINALLY become a reality can travel along with us :) [View Full Entry]

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