Jambo! I am in shock that our trip is coming to an end. I can remember counting down 48 hours until Africa, and now we are 48 hours away from leaving. Although it seems like we haven't had enough time, we have packed so much into these two weeks. It is impossible to understand how incredible these kids are without meeting them because we can only begin to describe their awesome-ness. We have all totally fallen in love with them and I don't know what will happen when we have to leave on Friday. This morning we went to town and [View Full Entry]

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Sooo, anyone who would care to read this would probably know that last summer, I spent a month in small village just outside of Arusha in Tanzania. I was about an hour and a half away from Moshi, where we are staying now, and I made several close friends, one of whom I actually managed to maintain contact with through emails and an occasional phone call. Obviously, coming back to Tanzania I wanted to see him again and when I told him the hotel we were staying at, he came all the way down here just to see me and say [View Full Entry]

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We've been here in Tanzania for about ten days, and it feels like we just got here. We're going to leave the day after tomorrow and fly back to Chicago, and I am so not ready to go back home. Being here has opened my eyes to the outside world, and I don't know if I am ready to go back to Wilmette. I love being at the school and being with the kids. Even when we come back to the hotel, I miss and think about the children; it is going to be so much harder when we leave on [View Full Entry]

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So this is my first blog. It's late in the trip, so I have a lot to say. First off, the kids are awesome. Everything that we do is entertaining for them. At the same time, we can't seem to tire out their limitless energy supply. I often find myself sweating and panting before the five and six year olds. In these situations, I will sit down with maybe a couple kids on my lap; I hope they understand I'm not trying to be rude. Teacher is the greatest guy I have ever met. It's like meeting Gandhi. He is the [View Full Entry]

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A few days ago we visited the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center and had a sit-down with the director of the hospital. After his lecture we had the opportunity to ask him questions. Shreve asked, 'What is the single most dangerous threat to the health of Tanzania?' And the director replied, 'Financing.' The simplicity of solutions I guess are often marred by our indifference to many of the world's problems. There ARE actually starving kids in Africa. How do you get people to listen? I don't know but I thought I'd ask. I really don't know what to write about. That and [View Full Entry]

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Being at the school today was an exciting one for me. Ms. Mills brought a wiffle bat and ball to the children. Considering baseball is my favorite game in the entire world, I was so happy to have the opportunity to teach the children how to play when they were not in class. Until I saw the children grabbing the bat and ball, it never really occurred to me that most of the world is unfamiliar with the game that we once called America's Pastime. So teaching young children how to swing a bat couldn't be that hard, could it? I [View Full Entry]

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Wow the first week seems to have gone by in such a breeze. It feels like just yesterday I was arriving at the old school and making the walk with the kids to the new one. Now a week later, bonds have been made and things are starting to pick up the pace. The first week with the kids was extremely entertaining as well as confusing. I was shocked at the lack of shyness and abundance of joy that all the kids held. But was even more amazed that even though we didn't speak the same language as the kids, [View Full Entry]

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Alright. So, this is going to be a sad and angry blog post, because right now I am sad and angry. Today we were outside the hotel, playing frisbee, and a little girl came along, walking by herself. We called her over. It was just starting to get dark--she grabbed onto Leah's arm, and held it really hard, and kept holding it. You could tell, this wasn't massive affection or friendliness; she did not want to be alone at night. She was really, really scared. So we stood with her for maybe half an hour until an older boy, perhaps her [View Full Entry]

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Hey friends and family! Greetings from Tanzania! To be cliche, summing up the trip thus far would be impossible with the amount of space and time I have. It has been both amazing and eye opening. For now, I'm going to skip the descriptions of what we have done and jump straight to my reactions. The first, we all (I think I can safely say) had a blast. The kids were fantastic, fun and energetic and we got some good work done. While it was clear that the children's lives were difficult and riddled with the effects of poverty, I felt [View Full Entry]

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Greetings from Tanzania! We have just returned from the Safari that we took at Ngorogoro Crater. My feelings are mixed about the whole thing. First off, the Safari itself was amazing. We were able to see so many animals that I had seen previously only in zoos. We also got lucky and saw all of the "Big Five" animals: lion, buffalo, leopard, elephant, and rhino. Although it was so amazing to see all of these cool animals in their natural habitat, I have to say that the days we spent safari-ing were the most depressing yet. This is for two reasons. [View Full Entry]

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