Zambia - The mighty Zambezi and hungry hippos

We crossed into Zambia almost a week ago, and spent a few days in the South Luangwa National Park, where we camped right along the Luangwa River and fell asleep listening to hippos. One night we awoke to a munching sound to see a HUGE hippo grazing one meter in front of our tent! We listened and watched him for over 30 minutes (it was about 3:00 a.m.)- it was just a crazy experience! We did a daytime game walk and night game drive while we were there and were lucky to see 2 leopards, 2 honey badgers, a few hyenas, and a whole group of elephants walk in front of our land rover just around sunset (along with lots of antelope and giraffe during the day). I had a better time on safari here than in the Serengeti, actually! It just felt more adventurous, low-key, and less touristy. After leaving the national park, we visited a local school where we taught the children games and songs and donated schoolbooks and pens to the students.

After driving through Zambia for another couple days, we're now in Livingstone/Victoria Falls - what a place! Yesterday we spent the day in Victoria Falls National Park, admiring one of the seven natural wonders of the world. The volume of water and magnitude of these cascades is just amazing.It's extreme sport central here! Actually, in a few minutes I'm leaving to go bungee jumping and gorge swinging at a bridge overlooking Victoria Falls! In the afternoon Bryan and I are going to fly over the falls in microlites, which are motorized hang gliders and should give us a killer view of the Zambezi River and falls. I'll try and write again before we get to South Africa (after Botswana and Namibia).

Malawi: The Warm Heart of Africa

I last left you in Zanzibar... after returning to Tanzania via ferry, we made our way overland through the port city of Dar Es Salaam, spending the next couple nights in Tanzania. Although Tanzania is a nice country, our next destination was my favorite so far in Africa: Malawi! (Although Kenya has a special place in my heart).

We spent almost a week in Malawi, mostly along the beautiful white sand shores (from quartz crystals) of Lake Malawi where we spent time with local Malawians and went kayaking, swimming, and I was even able to go SCUBA diving! The fish life in the lake is so interesting- hundreds of endemic species of African cichlids! Some fish I saw are endemic to the specific island I was diving at! Quite specialized little fish!

The cliche about Malawi is that it's the warm heart of Africa, because the people are so nice and welcoming. I found the cliche to be very true. Every day when we'd go down to the beach, where lots of little kids would join us swimming- we had a blast playing with them. Unfortunately, most of them have lost one or both parents to AIDS or Malaria or more often a combination of both. But, those children were so joyful and thankful! One particular boy, John, had a really bad burn on his hand, so I brought him out some first aid supplies and cleaned and bandaged him up- which caused many teenagers and children to then proceed to show me every cut they had, some of which were fine, others needed a band-aid. Someone from our travel group joked that I was going to become the town's new witchdoctor. John was so thankful that he made me a couple bracelets as gifts- so sweet!! Another younger boy, Ovias, also really touched my heart and I loved playing with him in the water.

Malawi also has the best woodwork and crafts we've encountered in Africa- we bartered with clothing and a little money and got a beautiful Malawian chair (which we've been lugging around since). Also in the craft market, the local carpenters taught me the African game of bao, which is a little like backgammon and chinese checkers, but played with seeds or small stones on a board with little indentations. Once we headed out of Malawi, most the people in our group agreed that Malawi was a special place with friendly people, inspiring natural beauty, and low-key for travel!

Tanzania: Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, & Zanzibar!

After traveling back to Nairobi, we met up with our overland adventure travel group on the 8th and headed for Tanzania. We're the only Americans in the camping group- the other travelers are from Great Britain, Germany, Korea, South Africa, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic- a very multi-national group! Along the way we passed Kilimanjaro, but the skies were too cloudy to catch a glimpse of the glacier-capped mountain. Our first few days in Tanzania were spent on safari in the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater National Parks. We loaded into old, sturdy, green 4x4 land rovers, passing through Maasai villages until we arrived at Olduvai Gorge- a fascinating place! We then kept 4x4ing it until we arrived in the Serengeti. We only had a couple hours before sunset to try and look for wildlife, but we were able to see giraffes, zebras, wildebeest, gazelles and other antelope, a female lion with her kill (a zebra), lots of birds, a cheetah, hippos, hyenas, vervet monkeys, and a leopard! We spent the night camping in the Serengeti without fences or even a boma, listening to hyenas. The next day we went on safari and saw tons of wildlife, including elephants, baboons, Cape Buffalo, and a family of lions.

After the Serengeti, we drove all afternoon to the crater, and camped on the rim. After dinner and nightfall, as Bryan and I headed to our tent, we were surprised to find 7 zebras and a big cape buffalo surrounding our tent, their eyes glowing by the light of our headlamps ... it was surreal (and maybe a little scary). The following day we had an amazing safari in Ngorongoro Crater, first with the view of thousands of wildebeest! The highlight of the safari was encountering a female lion with two young cubs, walking along the dirt road. We were able to watch them for some time, even when they came to a river and crouched down to drink- the experience is very hard to put into words, it was so awe-inspiring! After the safari, we went back to campsite to tear down our tents and found two huge male elephants in our camp!! What a surprise! (We gave them a wide berth and kept our distance).

Following another couple days of travel, and a boat ride from Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania- we are now on the island of Zanzibar in the Indian Ocean. The beaches have powdery white sand, the waters are turquoise, and each morning the north monsoon season winds blow for a couple hours. I've gone SCUBA diving a few times- the biodiversity of fish and reef life here is incredible. Today I saw my first wild green sea turtle! Sadly, after only 3 days here, we are leaving tomorrow to head back to the mainland- although this is really a place we could spend months at: swinging in hammocks, eating lobster, and diving (for relatively cheap!)! We also spent a day exploring the historic "Stone Town" full of carved wooden doors, beautiful architecture, and a colorful market with tons of spices and scarves.

Next we head to Malawi...

Kenyan Education

Our last week of volunteer work in Takaungu Village was wonderful; I already miss my host family and students. A typical day there for me started early in the morning, awaking to the call to prayer, eating a quick breakfast of tea and porridge, then walking about 2 kilometers to the Vutakaka School. I assisted a teacher, Mr. Musa, with his class (about the age of 3rd graders) every morning until about 12:30, when I would walk back to Tuma's house for a traditional and delicious Swahili lunch. After lunch I'd usually take a refreshing cold shower to wash off the heat of the day before walking back to school, where I would help in the afternoon with after-school "extra education" for Vutakaka students. Most days in the mid-afternoon I'd play a couple matches of netball (volleyball) with the school staff or dance with local Giriama women (one of the 9 Bantu-descendant tribes) to the beat of drums. From about 4:30-6:00 p.m. I'd teach/tutor students from the local public school, then walk home again along the beautiful, coconut palm-lined road back to Takaungu Village.

The Kenyan education system is widely known to be pretty bad ... the public school in Takaungu typically has 170 students in ONE class with ONE teacher, and maybe 2 desks and a piece of broken blackboard. The reason the public schools are so crowded and poorly funded is because primary school has only been free since 2002 when Kenya's current president was elected. Making primary school free was a good thing, except no additional funding or infrastructure has been provided, but children from poor and destitute families are now trying to attend school- in some places quadrupling the previous attendance numbers. On the other hand, Vutakaka School is a private school funded by the non-profit "East Africa Centre" and provides students with more tutoring time and resources (although still limited versus U.S. schools). I wish we could have stayed longer ... just when we had friends in the village and were starting to feel very comfortable with our host family, our volunteer time was up! I'll miss Tuma and her family, as well as my students, and plan to come back at some point in the future.