Safari update...finally!

Hey all,
It’s been a long time since I last updated and I have A TON to talk about! I went on safari March 2-5 and I honestly have no words to describe how amazing it was to see all the beautiful animals and the landscapes. I’ll try to touch on a few of t he highlights but when I get home the stories with the pictures will be a better re-telling of my time out in the wild :)
I started off my journey leaving from Moshi and went to a nearby town and picked up two girls a little older than me who are from Holland, then we went to Arusha and picked up the two boys that I know from the Arusha campus who were also student teaching. From there we went to Lake Manyara. When we arrived we had a quick lunch and then went out on a drive. We saw a lot of what I had seen in Kenya but the change of scenery was still amazing! We saw lots of giraffe, baboons, elephants, different birds, zebra, and the new animal I hadn’t seen before was hippos! There was a whole hippo pool that we could get out of our car and watch (from a distance of course.) That night we got back to our tent site and had a dip in the pool that was nearby. Then unfortunately we discovered that the tent the two girls from Holland and I were staying in had a broken zipper…not such a great discovery when you’re going to be tenting in the middle of nowhere with lots of animals around. In the morning we hadn’t been attacked by any crazed animals so that’s always a good sign!
In the morning we took off for the Serengeti but on the way we stopped for a few pictures for a look at Ngorongoro Crater, but we only stopped for a bit because we’d get a close look later on. When we arrived at the Serengeti I had my heart set on seeing LIONS. Right away we saw hyena just hanging out by the road and man were they uuuugggglllyyyy!!!! Then we got to see two cheetah just hanging out under some trees and we got really close to them. If they would have wanted to they could have jumped on our car and been having a nice lunch of sun-fried Alissa in two seconds flat. It was indescribable!! But I was still on a mission for lions! In the Serengeti everything is brown and there are all these big termite mounds so when we were on a search for the lions we kept mistaking the termite mounds for lions. But, we just so happened to stop for a baboon crossing the road and I took a look in my binoculars at what I thought was another termite mound but this time the mound had…a face…and a mane!!!! I told all the people that I had spotted a lion and we were freaking out! Then, it got better…the lion got up and literally just walked right towards our safari jeep. It was really funny because the guys that went with were getting really scared going “uhhh driver, uhhh shouldn’t you turn on the car, ummm the lion is getting close…uhhh lets go!” I had a little experience with animals being close up so I just told them to be quiet and that we’d be fine. It was funny that I was the brave one and these two guys were the scaredy-cats. No pun intended.
That night we stayed overnight in the Serengeti and when we went to go set up our tent we were literally setting up under the fine supervision a lovely giraffe! I was a bit nervous that our zipper didn’t work after having seen a giraffe right by where we were tenting, but still that night we woke up safe and sound and nothing bothered us.
At 5am the next morning we were up and ready to go on an early morning game drive and I got to see a gorgeous sunrise on the Serengeti. That day we drove to the south end of the park to see the migration of Wildebeest and Zebra. Seriously for MILES all you saw was zebra, wildebeest, zebra, another zebra, wildebeest….everywhere! That day we also saw some more lions and we were able to see a leopard from a distance that was being lazy in a tree.

That afternoon we drove out of the serengeti to Ngorongoro crater. That night we were having supper, watching an elephant eating some trees nearby, watching some buffalo graze beyond that and realizing that we'd be camping with the animals all night. Then we happened to overhear on of the other safari groups talking about how you should have NO food in your tent because there are a lot of animals where we were tenting on the top edge of the crater. So to be safe, I put some crackers that I had in my bag into our safari car. Knowing that our zipper didn't work I wanted to be extra careful. This is where the story gets good....

That night I went to sleep in my tent with my two new Dutch friends that I met on safari and in the middle of the night I feel something moving and I hear a kind of thud sound. I asked the girl next to me what that was and she thought it was the boys outside trying to scare us pretending to be an animal. So for a second I thought nothing of it but decided I should check to make sure my bag was where I left it....I felt for it with my foot...and didn't feel anything. I clicked on my flashlight to realize that my bag was no longer in the tent. After further observation we saw that our tent zipper was now completely broken off and I surprisingly found my bag about 2 feet outside of our tent. I was mugged....we think either by a hyena or a warthog!!! It's a pretty hilarious story when you think about it but let me tell you...that night I was so freaked out that something was going to come in our tent I didn't sleep a whole lot. We finally fell back to sleep for a bit but left our flashlights on all night.

The next morning we woke up early again and drove down into the crater. Our last day in the crater was my favorite day by far! Everything was beautiful and green and all the animals seemed to be more active. One of the first things we saw was a pack of lions and some cubs that had just gotten a Wildebeest and they were munching on it while we watched in amazement! Then later we saw some lions that were so close they litearlly ended up taking a nap in front of our safari vehicle. I can't wait to show you all pictures of this because it was amazing! We saw more cheetah in the crater and zebra and hippo etc. The new thing we hadn't seen yet that we spotted in the crater from a distance were a few Rhinos. It's so hard to begin to describe how great it felt to be in the midst of all of that beautiful creation.

I had an amazing time on safari and I hope that there is a next time and when I go again I want to take you all with me! We'd have a blast....and it may sound cliche but we'll have to sing every Lion King song we know. :) I had to try my hardest not to sing at the top of my lungs while my head was popped out of the safari vehicle and I was driving in what looked like a scene from the Lion King. I'm such a dork!



After my lovely trip you would think that I'd stay home and lay low for a few days...thats what I thought would happen, but less than 24 hours after I returned home from my trip I was in a car for 6 hours on my way to a town called Pangani which is just off the coast of the Indian Ocean. There I tented with a few friends in a place that was literally right off the beach. I zipped open my tent each morning to the beautiful sight of the Indian Ocean. I feasted on FRESH seafood every day and at night I went to sleep to the sound of the tide coming in. It was a relaxing few days. We had Monday off from school so we arrived back home again and back to reality around 7pm Monday.

Monday was a bit rough going at first since I had basically been away from school for over a week but I got back into the swing of things quickly. I've been doing a few more lessons in the afternoons but in the mornings I have been going to the other primary classrooms to observe what their typical day is like. It's been interesting to see how the different classrooms function and the different teaching methods of each teacher. This week I also had my last ASL club meeting. It was sad to tell my girls in my club this was our last time to meet because they had been doing a great job and were picking up on the signs really quickly!

As for my weekend...Friday there was a variety show at school that I went to and I was shocked by some of the talent I saw there! Some of the students in my class came out doing things I had no idea they could do. One of the boys in my class who is very shy and always more or less keeps to himself walked out on stage and did this amazing break dance and all the girls were going crazy over this ten year old kid :) It was great! After the talent show my roomate Nicolas hosted a BBQ/party which I was nervous about at first but it ended up being pretty low key and so we had a nice night. Saturday Sarah and I went to town and got our final purchases in Moshi. She has only been here two weeks but she is leaving soon after me so we got gifts and things to bring back home for all you lovely people that I miss so much! Saturday night we went out to a new restaurant with some teachers.

Today Sarah and I met up with Catherine (our class TA) and she took us to the village where she grew up. We walked about an hour to get there and it was great to be immersed in the culture and see how Catherine grew up and meet some of her family. Everyone was so kind and I brought some goodies for the kids so everyone had a great time :) I think the kids had their fill of sugar for the month though! We probably ended up walking about 6 or 7 miles by the end of the day but it was great to go through the village and meet people and even the walk back to my house helped me put into perspective how far some children walk each day to school because Catherine was saying that she went even further to school every day when she was young. It seems unreal that people actually live like that each day. It was a great experience though.

Well, now that I've officially updated you on the highlights of my past few weeks I should get going. I am looking forward to coming home soon. I love it here and it is going to be a bitter sweet good-bye but I'm excited to get back to life back in the mid-west. I miss the ease of every day life, I miss knowing that when I go to an ATM I'll actually get the money I've been charged, I miss having a vehicle to get around in, I miss my mommy's home cookin, but most of all I miss all my friends and family. It'll be nice to be back.

See you all very soon!
Alissa