Blogs from Africa - page 3214

As-Salam Aleikum osratee wa asdikaee (Peace upon you family and friends), Hello loyal readers, its been about 8 months since my last entry. I'm sorry for the delay but several things prompted me stop posting entries. First, people in Fes, where I was living, stumbled upon this blog, and I discovered that several complete stranger moroccans knew just a little more about me than I felt comfortable with. Then I had a couple complete stranger Europeans who had been reading the blog randomly show up to visit me, and they turned out to be.. well... weird (not you Rain). So I took a little break. I left Morocco, after an amazing 11 months, and went home in August for 6 weeks, after which I relocated to windy crowded Alexandria, Egypt. Alexandria is a boring city, but ... read more

Tonight I’m leaving for Zambia to volunteer as a development worker with Engineers Without Borders Canada (EWB)! After two red-eye flights through London and Johannesburg, I’ll land in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. I will be partnered with an international non-governmental organization (NGO) called International Development Enterprises (IDE). IDE focuses on simple irrigation technology for smallholder farmers like the human-powered treadle pump (which looks like a stairmaster and pumps about 1 liter of water per second) and drip irrigation. Unlike other organizations that give away technology and create donor dependency, IDE tries to set up a supply chain for the pumps which involves finding local manufacturers who sell directly to the farmers. They also ensure there is transportation to market for the farmer’s increased crop yields. I will be working on two projects; the firs... read more

On friday when we had finished teaching we all got changed and headed into Arusha. We had arrabnged to meet al the others at Masai Camp. Its like an actual campsite but also has a bar and resteraunt so we were going for a meal and some drinks. I had a pulled pork sandwich and chips, the first meat in like a week! After a few drinks and some (badly played) games of pool we decided to go to Colobus, the night club, for a bit of a boogie. We got a lift from a guy called Willam along the road, it only takes a few minutes but if you go out after dark it ios pretty likely that you will get mugged. I had an amazing time dancing and drinking and so on, the club ... read more

You ever have one of those days that you look back on and feel guilty for the time you just wasted? (back in Brooklyn, I used to call those "Sundays"). You count all the times that you were productive and come up with a negative number (you were asleep more than you were awake). That's the vibe we're getting in Dahab, one of Egypt's premiere resort towns on the East coast of the Sinai Peninsula. It's extremely slow paced and very quiet so to enjoy it you have to come with the right motivation-- that is, none. It's well done up, primarily for tourism. A well-maintained, paved boardwalk ("Corniche") runs for 2 miles along the beach lined with 30+ hotels, 50+ restaurants and innumerable souvenir shops and tour-booking agencies. Saudi Arabia is just across the Gulf ... read more

Hello all, The latest entry in our blog is coming from Mossel Bay a 6 hour bus journey east of Cape Town, but before we tell you about that we said we would tell you about our day trip to Robben Island! We bought our tciket the day before as this trip is very popular, and we could see why. Before boarding the ferry we walked around the exhibiton which explained about Nelson Mandela and apartheid. Once we had boarded our ferry it was a forty minute trip to the island. Once we had docked and got off the ferry we hopped on to a bus for a tour around the island, stopping at points of intrest such as the lepar graveyard and the limestone quarry, where the political prisoners were sent to work. In the ... read more