Blogs from Centre, Tanzania, Africa - page 6

The following is a blog I wrote for publishment on the Wildlife Connection organization website. I can't think of a good title for it, so Teaching Blog is what I came up with. Enjoy reading I grew up thinking I wanted to be a veterinarian, and in some respects, I still do. But then after I turned 21, a small voice in my head started whispering, “what about teaching?” Teaching? What about teaching!? There is no way I would be good at that; I suck at talking in front of large groups of people! Still, that thought stuck with me through the end of college, although I didn’t change my major to fit this new interest. I figured I would never get a job in it since I had no experience, and settled in working as ... read more

Safari Hi everyone. It is now the 14th of April and Jeannie and I have just returned after a two week Easter Break where we spent one day flying to Ruaha National Park and one week driving through northern Tanzania visiting Tarangire National Park, Ngorongoro Crater and Mt. Kilimanjaro in Moshi. We travelled with two other expats from Dodoma and although a little tiring from all the driving on some very rough roads the trip was wonderful. It is amazing how our little Rav4 is holding up on these rough African roads. Before we set out by car, our first trip was by air in a 6-seater Cessna with our friend Andrew from MAF at the helm, to Ruaha National Reserve for a one-day safari to see the magnificent countryside from a different perspective and to ... read more

Over the past five years you have been with us all the way. You have supported us, prayed for us, and shared in our labors. You have been with us through tears of joy and of sorrow. We have taken seriously the need to report honestly. We have shared the joys of conversions, restorations, and congregational development. We have balanced that with the realities of power outages, filtered water, malaria, and the vehicle rollover crash. If we have downplayed anything, it would be to not complain about some challenges that are part of real world Tanzania. We dare not focus upon those things when so many people have so much less than we have. We have ... read more

So the big three in the spectaclular Selous National Game Reserve are definitely Giraffe, Hippo and Impala but for those of you who know that my other passion besides leopard print clothing is all things dogs, the true show stopper found here has to be the African Wild Dogs. But I am getting ahead of my story. Selous was noteable for a series of 'firsts'. First boat drive(s), first permanent tent sleeping accomodation (as opposed to lodges, etc. and the 'camping' tenting we will be doing later), first walking 'drive' (previously always in trucks - except for Gorilla/Monkey treks which are different than a 'drive'). As Mon wrote in Selous 1, being out on the water of the river and lakes provided a different and really enjoyable way to view birds, hippos and crocs and the ... read more

We flew to Selous Game Reserve on Monday morning (2012-01-16), on another Caravan 208B 12 seater. Only one pilot, this time, who was somewhat concerned about weather reports about a rain storm heading for Selous from the Indian Ocean. Rain in Tanzania in January is almost unheard of, but since the "dry season" was supposed to have begun in mid-December, parts of Tanzania have had more rain than the whole of the last "big rains" season. That is probably because last March to May East Africa was still in a severe drought. Thankfully that seems to be ending, even for hardest hit Somalia. Unfortunately a big storm in Dar es Salaam in late December caused flooding that killed 14 people in the poorer neighbourhoods we visited (see the "coffee" blog entry). Luckily no rain came during ... read more