I have to admit it's been a very long time since I have looked at my blog as it pretty well stopped near the end of my trip. It is now almost one year since I left for the greatest adventure of my life and I am so sad that I'm not jetting off now again. Reading through my old posts it feels like just yesterday that I was getting ready to leave. Also looking back I have to laugh, there are things I said such as the work being soooo hard, and yes it was very physically tiring and challenging, but it was so worth it, and I wish I had done more because it is so rewarding to look back at what you have accomplished. I also said that there wasn't much to do in camp other than cook and work, but everywhere you turned there was a new experience and new people to meet. Just going for a walk, (even if it was 4 hours long) to the market, or to the local school, it was never the same like life is driving to work or school. Looking back makes me realize just how incredibly lucky I was to be able to have such an experience and if I could give anyone one piece of advice it would be to go and do something like what I did last year. You will never regret it, and you will always be glad you did and wish you could live it all over again. Volunteer Africa is a great organization and does wonderful things for wonderful people and I can only wish that they receive all the help they can get to continue down the road of success and happiness that they do such a good job of passing on to the amazing Tanzanian people.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Europe
So I'm now in England. We finished our last few days up in Zanzibar and in those days they most exciting thing I did was go swimming with dolphins. It was great aside from the fact that I got about a million jellyfish stings that even now about 2 weeks later you can still see faintly in some areas. They really really hurt and I know you're all thinking it, but no I did not pee on them or let Richard do it either. We got into Paris on the 18th and were there for four days. Paris is a really cool city and I would like to go back for a bit longer one day, even though I got to see most of the sights there are still a few museums and whatnot that I would like to go to. But man was it expensive, for Richard and I to go for lunch at a decent resturant and share a club sandwich a bottle or water and a piece of cake cost like 25 euros and one euro is roughly $1.65. I am now in England and I've been really sick for the last two days but I seem to be on the road to recovery.
We spent the day in London today and went all over the place. My favorite was a store, which I can't remember the name of, where the Queen shops. There was 4 floors and inside was everything from pet supplies to wedding dresses, and makeup to home decor. It was so ridiculously expensive. We found a fur coat worth £20,000 (which is $40,000) and it was so ugly. It was really weird being in a shop where even with all the money left in my bank account and all the credit available on my visa I couldn't buy half the things in the entire store. And people were actually shopping there. Outside there was a whole street just filled with the nicest cars you could imagine. There was bentlys, ferries, mercedis, range rovers, porches and austin martins, along with others that I didn't even know, parked bumper to bumper parked all around the building. Most of the people actually shopping there were middle eastern people who own oil fields and that.
Anyway, only 19 days till I get home now, and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone. I'm really behind on writing in my journal so that is the next thing to get updated. Leave me some comments cause I love to hear from you and I'll speck to you all soon.
We spent the day in London today and went all over the place. My favorite was a store, which I can't remember the name of, where the Queen shops. There was 4 floors and inside was everything from pet supplies to wedding dresses, and makeup to home decor. It was so ridiculously expensive. We found a fur coat worth £20,000 (which is $40,000) and it was so ugly. It was really weird being in a shop where even with all the money left in my bank account and all the credit available on my visa I couldn't buy half the things in the entire store. And people were actually shopping there. Outside there was a whole street just filled with the nicest cars you could imagine. There was bentlys, ferries, mercedis, range rovers, porches and austin martins, along with others that I didn't even know, parked bumper to bumper parked all around the building. Most of the people actually shopping there were middle eastern people who own oil fields and that.
Anyway, only 19 days till I get home now, and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone. I'm really behind on writing in my journal so that is the next thing to get updated. Leave me some comments cause I love to hear from you and I'll speck to you all soon.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Big Teen Update
Hey everyone,
It's been a long time and you've probably given up on me writing on here anymore but surprise surprise, I'm back. Okay well so far I've finsihed volunteering. It was great and I'd do it again in a heart beat. The people out there were so amazing and so much fun. On our last night there they threw us a big send off party with traditional dance and music which was so fun. We ended up finding a really crappy radio and dancing around a huge camp fire until about midnight. I know that's not late by normal standards but in camp we were going to bed around 8pm most nights so 12 was really late for us. And I was one of the very last ones up, I was dancing with this really great and really good looking guy named Saleem, he was one of the local workers that we worked with a lot on the project.
The next place we went to was Arusha which is up in the northern part of Tanzania and we first climbed Mt. Meru, the second highest mountain in Africa. We had decided to climb Meru instead of Kilimanjaro from home because we read that it would be easier. We found out when we started climbing that it is actually much harder. Even though it's not quite as high as Kili it's much more steep and a much harder climb. We made it to the top but I felt like I was going to die. That was deffinetly the most physically challenging thing I've ever done and I think it's safe to say that it's the last mountain I will ever climb. My legs were so sore and you wouldn't think so, but because it was so steap, coming down, was in a twisted way, just as hard as going up. My legs and knees were so so so sore that once we got down I couldn't walk up or down stairs for about 3 days without being in sevre pain!!!
Then we went on to a more relaxing adventure and did 4 days of safari. We first did one day in the Ngorongoro Crater which was really cool. We got to see a Rhino and a Cheetah for the first time. Unfortunatly it was from quite a distance and we forgot our binoculars back home so we didn't get a great view of them. We also saw a bunch of hippos and wildbeast and a bunch of other things which I will show you pictures of later. That same night we went to the Serengeti and we saw 2 female lions with 4 cubs. They were soooo cute!!! We then did a full day of driving the next day and saw pretty much everything. In the evening we saw a Leopard hanging out in a tree and she jumped down and ran off. It was close to the car too so we saw her quite well. We also stopped later on and were watching a bunch of baboons in a tree (they were all up there because there was a small pride of lions down below) and they were apparently not happy with us being there so they peed on the car and I got the brunt of it. It was really not funny at the time as I had baboon pee all down my back and arm but shit happens and I was laughing about it soon after.
We then spent a few days in Arusha and flew to Zanzibar. We are currently in Zanzibar on the East coast and are staying in a cool resort owned by an Italian couple. We have visited the North coast and I went snorkling there yesterday. It was lots of fun, but unfortunatly Richard swallowed a bunch of salt water and got sick so he couldn't stay out with me. I felt bad for him, he was literally "sick" off the side of the boat. We are going to stay here for 3 days and then we are going back to Stonetown, which is a neat place, for 3 more days then it's back to the main land and catch a flight to Europe. I am going to miss Tanzania a lot but at the same time I'm read to leave. I miss home a lot and can't wait to get back, mostly to see my dog. Anyway I'll update this again in Europe I promise. I'll probably have it done by the 24th. Miss you guys and I hope to hear from you soon.
It's been a long time and you've probably given up on me writing on here anymore but surprise surprise, I'm back. Okay well so far I've finsihed volunteering. It was great and I'd do it again in a heart beat. The people out there were so amazing and so much fun. On our last night there they threw us a big send off party with traditional dance and music which was so fun. We ended up finding a really crappy radio and dancing around a huge camp fire until about midnight. I know that's not late by normal standards but in camp we were going to bed around 8pm most nights so 12 was really late for us. And I was one of the very last ones up, I was dancing with this really great and really good looking guy named Saleem, he was one of the local workers that we worked with a lot on the project.
The next place we went to was Arusha which is up in the northern part of Tanzania and we first climbed Mt. Meru, the second highest mountain in Africa. We had decided to climb Meru instead of Kilimanjaro from home because we read that it would be easier. We found out when we started climbing that it is actually much harder. Even though it's not quite as high as Kili it's much more steep and a much harder climb. We made it to the top but I felt like I was going to die. That was deffinetly the most physically challenging thing I've ever done and I think it's safe to say that it's the last mountain I will ever climb. My legs were so sore and you wouldn't think so, but because it was so steap, coming down, was in a twisted way, just as hard as going up. My legs and knees were so so so sore that once we got down I couldn't walk up or down stairs for about 3 days without being in sevre pain!!!
Then we went on to a more relaxing adventure and did 4 days of safari. We first did one day in the Ngorongoro Crater which was really cool. We got to see a Rhino and a Cheetah for the first time. Unfortunatly it was from quite a distance and we forgot our binoculars back home so we didn't get a great view of them. We also saw a bunch of hippos and wildbeast and a bunch of other things which I will show you pictures of later. That same night we went to the Serengeti and we saw 2 female lions with 4 cubs. They were soooo cute!!! We then did a full day of driving the next day and saw pretty much everything. In the evening we saw a Leopard hanging out in a tree and she jumped down and ran off. It was close to the car too so we saw her quite well. We also stopped later on and were watching a bunch of baboons in a tree (they were all up there because there was a small pride of lions down below) and they were apparently not happy with us being there so they peed on the car and I got the brunt of it. It was really not funny at the time as I had baboon pee all down my back and arm but shit happens and I was laughing about it soon after.
We then spent a few days in Arusha and flew to Zanzibar. We are currently in Zanzibar on the East coast and are staying in a cool resort owned by an Italian couple. We have visited the North coast and I went snorkling there yesterday. It was lots of fun, but unfortunatly Richard swallowed a bunch of salt water and got sick so he couldn't stay out with me. I felt bad for him, he was literally "sick" off the side of the boat. We are going to stay here for 3 days and then we are going back to Stonetown, which is a neat place, for 3 more days then it's back to the main land and catch a flight to Europe. I am going to miss Tanzania a lot but at the same time I'm read to leave. I miss home a lot and can't wait to get back, mostly to see my dog. Anyway I'll update this again in Europe I promise. I'll probably have it done by the 24th. Miss you guys and I hope to hear from you soon.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Friday, June 6, 2008
Week one in the village
I can't believe I've already done week one of three. It's going by pretty quick although it still seems like it's taking forever to get back home. I know once I'm home I'll wish I was back here but I can't help but miss it. Camp is pretty great. We are about one hour outside of the main town where I am writing you from now. We are sleeping in a giant Army tent and the beds are crap but I'm still mananging to get plenty of good sleep, surprisingly enough. The food is alright, but it takes forever to cook anything. I'm also eating gross amounts of Mayo but that's the only dairy we have all week long and it makes things like salad and what-not a little less boring. I love all the other volunteers, they are a blast and I'm getting along well with everyone so far. I like my quiet time which you really don't get much of but it's still good.
The stars are the most amazing things you have ever seen from way out there. They are endless and it looks like they are falling from the sky the way they completely surround you. You can also see the milky way and it is so dark at night. I saw a sliver of the moon for the fisrt time last night, it's kind of wierd. The sunsets are also incredible. They don't last long but a lot of nights we will all run out to what we call "Sunset Log" ( a fallen log outside of camp in a feild) to watch it go down, and the colours are just amazing. I have some great pictures so far but this computer is very slow so I am going to go to a faster internet caffe tomorrow and try to post some.
I look like a gross bum about 90% of the time and I miss my shower stall like you wouldn't believe. I only wear about 2 pairs of cloths because everything you wear out there goes orange within a few hours and you can't escape it so I just wear the same stuff day after day and don't worry about it. I am one of the cleaner people out there too so I really don't even notice until we come back into town here. I have been writing in my Journal a lot so I don't forget any stories for when I get back home. I've only been gone 2 weeks and I have already used over 1/4 of the pages.
Work sucks and it's really hard, but I'll live. We have spent most of the time making brick which doesn't sound hard but it's nothing like the bricks we have at home. We first mix sand with concrete mix and water all by hand and then beat it into wooden forms with a giant caveman like bat which kills the body and you are so sore by the end of it you really don't want to move. We have to fetch all the water in buckets from a well about 200' away from the sit and the bricks are solid blocks that weigh about 40lbs when they are dry. We don't leave them in the forms to dry you pack it in and then take the form off right away so it really sucks when they break and you have to start over again. Three of us still manage to do about 150 in a morning. We only work for about 4 hours a day because after that it gets too hot and we can't keep going.
After work and cooking there really isn't a whole lot to do out there but we have been to the local school and to a few peoples houses which is interesting. We went to our camp guards house, his name is Jimani and he tries very hard to speak english which makes us all laugh every single day. He is 54 years old and have two wives, the youngest one being 23. He has 10 kids and his oldest is a girl who is 28 years old. Twisted huh? He calls us all, girls included, Mr. and Sir all the time but we are trying to teach him. He's a bit if a cheaky bugger but we love him and camp wouldn't be the same without him. Over here you have to buy 5 cows for your wife before you can marry her and once you are married that's it, the wife can't just leave if she wants. I'm so glad it's not like that at home.
Well that's all for now, hope everyone back home is doing well and I hope the weather gets better there, it doesn't sound to great so far. I haven't seen rain since I left! Love you all, talk to you next Friday.
The stars are the most amazing things you have ever seen from way out there. They are endless and it looks like they are falling from the sky the way they completely surround you. You can also see the milky way and it is so dark at night. I saw a sliver of the moon for the fisrt time last night, it's kind of wierd. The sunsets are also incredible. They don't last long but a lot of nights we will all run out to what we call "Sunset Log" ( a fallen log outside of camp in a feild) to watch it go down, and the colours are just amazing. I have some great pictures so far but this computer is very slow so I am going to go to a faster internet caffe tomorrow and try to post some.
I look like a gross bum about 90% of the time and I miss my shower stall like you wouldn't believe. I only wear about 2 pairs of cloths because everything you wear out there goes orange within a few hours and you can't escape it so I just wear the same stuff day after day and don't worry about it. I am one of the cleaner people out there too so I really don't even notice until we come back into town here. I have been writing in my Journal a lot so I don't forget any stories for when I get back home. I've only been gone 2 weeks and I have already used over 1/4 of the pages.
Work sucks and it's really hard, but I'll live. We have spent most of the time making brick which doesn't sound hard but it's nothing like the bricks we have at home. We first mix sand with concrete mix and water all by hand and then beat it into wooden forms with a giant caveman like bat which kills the body and you are so sore by the end of it you really don't want to move. We have to fetch all the water in buckets from a well about 200' away from the sit and the bricks are solid blocks that weigh about 40lbs when they are dry. We don't leave them in the forms to dry you pack it in and then take the form off right away so it really sucks when they break and you have to start over again. Three of us still manage to do about 150 in a morning. We only work for about 4 hours a day because after that it gets too hot and we can't keep going.
After work and cooking there really isn't a whole lot to do out there but we have been to the local school and to a few peoples houses which is interesting. We went to our camp guards house, his name is Jimani and he tries very hard to speak english which makes us all laugh every single day. He is 54 years old and have two wives, the youngest one being 23. He has 10 kids and his oldest is a girl who is 28 years old. Twisted huh? He calls us all, girls included, Mr. and Sir all the time but we are trying to teach him. He's a bit if a cheaky bugger but we love him and camp wouldn't be the same without him. Over here you have to buy 5 cows for your wife before you can marry her and once you are married that's it, the wife can't just leave if she wants. I'm so glad it's not like that at home.
Well that's all for now, hope everyone back home is doing well and I hope the weather gets better there, it doesn't sound to great so far. I haven't seen rain since I left! Love you all, talk to you next Friday.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Off to Mvae
Hello again,
My horse has Lice!!! Eww, poor guy! Thanks for taking care of him Bec.
Well I am off to the village tomorrow so this will be all you hear from me until next Friday or Saturday. I love reading all of your comments so thanks for leaving them. I want to know what the weather is like back home. I was lying in bed the toehr morning picturing my neightbourhood and I could see everything perfectly. As for the land scape here it looks very dry and grassy. It is beautiful though with wide open spaces and beautiful sunsets. Although I am getting quite sick of the food. All there seems to be is bread, eggs, chips, chicken, fish (in whole form, kind of gross to eat) and odd things like goat meat and some beef. I ate soup the other day and it had Chicken broth in it but it made my cold feel better for a bit and man did it taste good. I feel kind of bad but you gotta do what you gotta do. And mom just so you know your comments on here are working ust fine. Anyway got to go, but I can't wait to hear from you all and get back on here next weekend. Bye for now, I'm going to go put my body through hell.
My horse has Lice!!! Eww, poor guy! Thanks for taking care of him Bec.
Well I am off to the village tomorrow so this will be all you hear from me until next Friday or Saturday. I love reading all of your comments so thanks for leaving them. I want to know what the weather is like back home. I was lying in bed the toehr morning picturing my neightbourhood and I could see everything perfectly. As for the land scape here it looks very dry and grassy. It is beautiful though with wide open spaces and beautiful sunsets. Although I am getting quite sick of the food. All there seems to be is bread, eggs, chips, chicken, fish (in whole form, kind of gross to eat) and odd things like goat meat and some beef. I ate soup the other day and it had Chicken broth in it but it made my cold feel better for a bit and man did it taste good. I feel kind of bad but you gotta do what you gotta do. And mom just so you know your comments on here are working ust fine. Anyway got to go, but I can't wait to hear from you all and get back on here next weekend. Bye for now, I'm going to go put my body through hell.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Singida
Hello again,
Well I have good news today. I am feeling much much much much better. We went out for dinner after I last posted and I could not eat a thing because I felt so sick, but I brought my food back to camp and managed to eat enough to swallow my Milaria pill wihtout feeling sick. I got more sleep that night, but the hours were limited because we had to get up at 4:30 am to catch the bus to Singida. We got on the bus just fine but the ride sucked. It took 11.5 hours and almost half of it was on a very bump dirt road and it felt at times like the bus was going to tip right over. I got very depressed on the ride out here aswell seeing all the suffering people along the way and my imagination went wild thinking about what kind of place Singida might be. When we arrived the fact was that it is actually quite a nice place. The place we are staying is much nicer too. There are no more cockroches but some of the lizards here are pretty big. I saw one today around 1' long. I had a hot shower this morning and feel so much better. We are staying in a fenced ground which is owned by a Roman Catholic group and it is guarded by Basenji's (a dog that is a sight hound originaly from Congo, I believe) at night. The people are all very nice and I feel much safer and happier here. I am starting to catch on to Kiswahili a bit better now and that too is making me feel better.
Today we also met with the HAPA Director and he is a very nice, wise man. I am really getting excited about this program and feel very good supporting it. Things are still deffinetly different, but I am adjusting and things are coming around. I'm sorry for my depressing and I imagine somewhat concerning message I left the other day, but when you are inches away from crying it's hard to come up with possitive things to say. I know this is not the most organised blog update but I have a bunch of things to say and it's coming out a bit fast. I am still sad and miss home a lot but the way I'm trying to look at it is I will soon be home and these people have to stay here forever. I shouldn't feel sorry for myself when I am not the one suffering and that even though I miss home I know there are things I will miss about this place once I leave and so I should take full advantage of it and not waist my time crying. Well I think that's about all I have to say for today, but I promise to blog again atleast once before I go out to the village on Saturday where we will be working.
Love you all lots and still miss you like crazy. Like I will say everytime, give all my animals a big kiss and I'll talk to you again soon. Thanks for the support,
Tina xoxoxoxoxoxoxox
Well I have good news today. I am feeling much much much much better. We went out for dinner after I last posted and I could not eat a thing because I felt so sick, but I brought my food back to camp and managed to eat enough to swallow my Milaria pill wihtout feeling sick. I got more sleep that night, but the hours were limited because we had to get up at 4:30 am to catch the bus to Singida. We got on the bus just fine but the ride sucked. It took 11.5 hours and almost half of it was on a very bump dirt road and it felt at times like the bus was going to tip right over. I got very depressed on the ride out here aswell seeing all the suffering people along the way and my imagination went wild thinking about what kind of place Singida might be. When we arrived the fact was that it is actually quite a nice place. The place we are staying is much nicer too. There are no more cockroches but some of the lizards here are pretty big. I saw one today around 1' long. I had a hot shower this morning and feel so much better. We are staying in a fenced ground which is owned by a Roman Catholic group and it is guarded by Basenji's (a dog that is a sight hound originaly from Congo, I believe) at night. The people are all very nice and I feel much safer and happier here. I am starting to catch on to Kiswahili a bit better now and that too is making me feel better.
Today we also met with the HAPA Director and he is a very nice, wise man. I am really getting excited about this program and feel very good supporting it. Things are still deffinetly different, but I am adjusting and things are coming around. I'm sorry for my depressing and I imagine somewhat concerning message I left the other day, but when you are inches away from crying it's hard to come up with possitive things to say. I know this is not the most organised blog update but I have a bunch of things to say and it's coming out a bit fast. I am still sad and miss home a lot but the way I'm trying to look at it is I will soon be home and these people have to stay here forever. I shouldn't feel sorry for myself when I am not the one suffering and that even though I miss home I know there are things I will miss about this place once I leave and so I should take full advantage of it and not waist my time crying. Well I think that's about all I have to say for today, but I promise to blog again atleast once before I go out to the village on Saturday where we will be working.
Love you all lots and still miss you like crazy. Like I will say everytime, give all my animals a big kiss and I'll talk to you again soon. Thanks for the support,
Tina xoxoxoxoxoxoxox
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