Camping on the beach

A few weeks ago, I was thinking about our upcoming midterm break and wondering what I wanted to do. Then I had the brilliant idea that we should go camping and then I had the even better idea that we should take our youth small group with us. For a few weeks it was all exciting and the girls were so excited to go, but then came the realization that camping with nine people in Tanzania on the beach is a lot of work…and I began to wonder what in the world I was thinking.

After a very busy few weeks and parent teacher conferences, we packed up the car with everything but the kitchen sink and headed 45 minutes north of Dar to a small town called Bagamoyo. We set up camp at one of the local “resorts” on the beach.

We spent our time sitting around relaxing, swimming in the pool, trying to cook over a little “jiko” and taking lots of pictures.

We made "hobos" and cooked them over the fire...they were really good

Lucy making smores over the fire. It was dark and we all ended up with marshmellow all over us!

Hanging out around the campfire

All of our other cooking we did over a Tanzanian kerosine "jiko"...it was an experience! Here I am making pancakes for breakfast. We also had omlettes...we ate good!

Fun in the pool

Posing in the ocean for a group shot

Despite the work that it took to get everything organizes and sorted, we all had a great time and enjoyed each others company. These girls are all amazing and I love being around them – their energy is contagious and their smiles and love warm my heart.

Here are some group shot of all of us…

We took about 20 pictures before we got a good one!