Missing Tanzania...

I have only been home a week but...


Things I miss about Tanzania:


*Meg, Melissa, Gibbie, Medinas, McFarlanes, my girls, my grade 10 class and all my other students, fellow teachers, Burest and Asha...

*fresh tropical fruit...I am enjoying the berries here but nothing beats fresh pineapple, mango, passion fruit, bananas

*the warm sunny weather...it is cold here!

*Addis in Dar (an Ethipian restaurant) and Anghitis (an Indian restaurant)...so GOOD!

*rice...minute rice just does not do it.

*the beach, of course

*ice cream at Slipway...weird I know, but it is really good!

*watching reruns of tv shows on dvd with Meg and Melissa...tv will never quite be the same!

Things I don't miss about Tanzania:


*driving - even though it is always an adventure and there is a part of me that kind of likes it, I must admit that it is nice to be able to get around without traffic, daladalas (buses), flooding, etc!

*mosquitos, ants, rats and other creatures

*wearing the same clothes over and over...I am enjoying a wider variety of clothing options.


These are just the things that came to mind right now...I am sure that as the weeks go by that there will be other things that I miss. At the same time, there are things that I like about bring back in the States, such as being with my family, quick internet access, bagels and cream cheese, all my books...

Tanzania will always hold a special place in my heart and I have so many fond memories of my three years there. Who knows, maybe I will be back there in a few years!

Three weeks in Europe...

We're back! And we had an amazing time travelling in Europe. Alanna, Daniel and I spent three weeks travelling in France, Italy and Greece and we saw so much. Alanna and I started our trip in London and spent a few days seeing the sights and then met up with Daniel in Paris. We happened to be in Paris for their independence celebration and got to see fireworks in front of the Eiffle Tower - very cool. After Paris, we headed to Marseille and we got to see both the World Cup of Beach Soccer and the AVP Beach Volleyball. From there we went to Venice which was a very unique city with all its canals and bridges. Then off Rome which was one of my favorite cities with its history and monuments. From Rome, we headed to Crete which was absolutely beautiful and our hotel was upgraded to a 5 star resort so we were pampered. We took a very long ferry ride from Crete to Athens and spent a few says seeing the ancient sights. Overall, we had a great time and it was a blessing to be able to spend this time with my siblings.

I tried to narrow down our pictures to just a few but here is a glimpse of our trip...

In the London Eye

Paris

Marseille

Venice...the city of canals and bridges

Inside the Colloseum

Inside the Vatican City

Some more ruins...not sure what they are supposed to be!

More Ruins

Beautiful Crete

The Acropolis

Athens

The first modern Olympic Stadium

Final views from Dar

I am amazed at the speed of the internet in the West...my pictures uploaded so fast! It used to take me most of the day at school to get a few pictures uploaded and here I am able to do it in a few minutes...crazy!

Here are the pictures that I tried to upload before I left Dar...enjoy...

From the SELOUS...

The view from our plane looking out over the vast Selous Game Reserve...the scenery was breathtaking.

Alanna and I posing in near the Rufiji River

An elephant by the side of the river

A wild dog...they look just like normal house dogs expect they are very fierce (apparently!) Most of their population live in the Selous. This was the first time I had seen them.

More animal pictures...you can never have enough!

A hippo on the river. There are hundreds of them on the river and this is the closest picture I have ever got of one...just after I took the picture, this one started doing the breast stroke toward us...literally! It was swimming right at our boat, quite fast might I add, and was a little nerve-racking since hippos are HUGE and actally quite dangerous.

Speaking of things charging at us...the very next day while on a game drive, we stopped to watch this herd of elephant in the distance. All of the sudden one of the elephants reared up and started charging at our car, at an alarming rate might I add. Our driver immediately started to drive away but the elephant kept charging. It ended up following us a good distance, even stopping once to regather the herd. It was amazing to see! Our guide said that he had never seen this happen before but he had heard of a herd of elephant that did not like cars...probably because of the poachers. (We did ask after we were far away what would have happened if the car had stalled or got stuck and the response we got was "that would be a big problem"...not too comforting!)

The stunning beauty of a sunset - a good reminder God's love for us!

I like this picture!

Alanna and I on our boat safari

Self-portrait...we are getting quite good at these since there is no one else to take the picture!

On to ZANZIBAR...

We went to Prison Island, which is a small island off the coast that was once used to house slaves, but now is the home to some massive turtles. It also has great snorkling...but it was freezing when we got out!

Another self-portrait

And another...

We decided that we wanted to get henna done so went searching for a place to do it. We stopped at the first sign we saw and decided it would work...little did we know. We picked our designs from a large book and the lady set to work (after going out to buy the henna which should have been our first sign). She started with Alanna and ended up with nothing like the design she had picked and what she had done was not very good. I decided to go ahead and get mine done as well since Alanna had and mine turned out slightly better because we had learned our lesson. We laughed a lot about our "budget" henna and were glad that it started to wash off a few days later.

I love this picture because it not only shows our henna but also shows how tan I am compared to Alanna...it made me feel good!

Final Travels in Tanzania...School is over and Alanna is here…

I was going to add some pictures to go along with this but the internet was really slow so I was not able to...hopefully I will get the posted soon...

School ended with a whirlwind of activity and goodbyes. Melissa left a few days after we finished but then Alanna arrived and so started our 5 weeks of travel! My mind is filled with thoughts of leaving Tanzania but I have not had time to process these thoughts yet, but will pass try to articulate them in a blog in the near future. For now, you can all live vicariously through our travels so far…

After spending a few days here in Dar, we headed to the Selous National Game Reserve. It is about a 30 min flight (on a small puddle jumper plane) and is one of the parks that I have not been to and I heard good things about it. Although it was not the best safari I have been on, we enjoyed ourselves and it was great to get out of the city and away from the business and just relax. I have been on many safaris (at least 15 that I can remember) and I am still amazed and reminded of the beauty of God’s creation. All around were signs of His creativity and His amazing love for us. From the smallest bird to the largest elephant to the most amazing sunsets, God made everything for you and me. It is not possible to go on safari without turning back to God in praise and adoration for all that He has created.

After being back in Dar for only one day, we headed out Zanzibar (a small island off the coast of Tanzania). In my three years here, I have been to Zanzibar many time, but have not made it over there this year and was glad for the chance to make a final trip there. Zanzibar is a beautiful place with a rich history (It was the last place slaves stopped on their way out of East Africa). Zanzibar also has the best beaches I have ever seen! We spent our time relaxing, snorkeling and shopping…nothing better.

We are now headed to Europe (where we will be joined by Daniel) for three more weeks of travels…I will try to update with some pictures of I am able to.

I still cant believe that I am leaving Tanzania tomorrow…

Youth Photo Scavenger Hunt

Last night, for our last youth of the year (sad!), I planned a photo scavenger hunt. The kids were divided up into 7 different teams and each had a list of pictures that they had to take, either at a specific location or doing a certain pose. The kids loved it! I was in a group with the girls from my small group and we had a blast driving around, screaming at the top of our voices (which I am feeling today) and taking creative pictures. We were going to offer 2 different prizes - one for the first team back and one for the most creative pictures/stories. Unfortunately when we got back to the house and we just about to start looking at all the pictures (which is the best part), the power went out! It was so anticlimactic! So we were not able to look at all the pictures, but I think the kids still all enjoyed it and it was a great end to the year.

I am sad to say goodbye to all of these kids, but am excited to take what I have learned here and get plugged in with the youth back at home.

Here are the pictures that my group took with the accompaning stories...I must say that my group definitly would have won the most creative just because of the stories that we were planning on telling...not to mention that Savannah was the story teller and was quite hyper! Mine wont compare to hers, but you will at least get an idea!

Hugging a palm tree...

A family picture...now this is where the story gets interesteing...it had something to do with a scandal with the dad of the family having an affair with one of the children...like I said, we would have won the creative story...Lucy is the baby if you could not tell!

Reenacting a historical/famous event...can you guess what they are going...the Titanic! Which was what spurred the affair story because these 2 are in love in this picture, but in the pervious one Jo is the Dad and Savannah is one of the children.

At the beach, pretending to be sea creatures...we have an octopus, a fish and a dolphin...I am a fish if you could not tell!

Posing for a "glamour shot"...now we got a little creative for this one...we decided to do the jumping pose because my girls did this pose when they had their pictures taken!

Spelling out a word with our bodies...can you read it?? We spelled "elope"...again, not sure how we can up with that word but our story was going to tie it back to the previous photos.

At White Sands (a local hotel), pose of our choice...just trying to do something different!

With an animal of our choice...we chose to do the "thinking man" pose...now this is kind of a funny story. Another one of our clues was to get a picture with a HOPAC teacher so we went to one of the primary teachers house, only to find that she was not there and that another family was staying in the house...they got quite a shock when a group of screaming teens showed up at the door...but we still checked on off the list posing with their dogs!

With a Knight Support Guard (a local security firm)...we are posing as Charlies Angels

At Engen, pretending to pump gas

The whole group in the car...if you look closely my finger is in the corner of the picture (I was trying to drive!)

At school, doing a pyramid

With a HOPAC teacher...we ended up going to Mr. Feather's (our deputy director) house...I think he was teaching us our ABC's in our story...

At a duka (shop) buying fruit...now 2 things are wrong with this picture...one is that we are not really at a duka as they were all closed so we decided to go to "duka la Feather" (we did not break any rules since we did pay for it!). The second is that Lucy is holding a carrot which is not a fruit, but we read the rules wrong!

At Medinas, doing a creative dance...this was our last picture and is a little cut off because another group tried to sabotage our picture and bumped the camera!

We might not have come first, but we had a so much fun taking our pictures and creating stories...so many good memories!